implementing-file-integrity-monitoring-with-aide

name	implementing-file-integrity-monitoring-with-aide
description	Configure AIDE (Advanced Intrusion Detection Environment) for file integrity monitoring including baseline creation, scheduled integrity checks, change detection, and alerting. Use when configureing aide (advanced intrusion detection environment) for file integrity monitoring.
domain	cybersecurity
subdomain	endpoint-security
tags	["aide","file-integrity","hids","baseline","intrusion-detection","compliance","linux-security"]
version	1.0
author	oyi77
license	Apache-2.0
nist_csf	["PR.PS-01","PR.PS-02","DE.CM-01","PR.IR-01"]

Implementing File Integrity Monitoring with AIDE

Overview

AIDE (Advanced Intrusion Detection Environment) is a host-based intrusion detection system that monitors file and directory integrity using cryptographic checksums. This skill covers generating AIDE configuration files, initializing baseline databases, running integrity checks, parsing change reports, and setting up automated cron-based monitoring with alerting.

When to Use

Trigger phrases:

• "implementing file integrity monitoring with aide"

• "Configure AIDE (Advanced Intrusion Detection Environment) for file integrity mon"

• When deploying or configuring implementing file integrity monitoring with aide capabilities in your environment

• When establishing security controls aligned to compliance requirements

• When building or improving security architecture for this domain

• When conducting security assessments that require this implementation

Prerequisites

• AIDE installed on target Linux system (apt install aide / yum install aide)
• Root or sudo access for file system scanning
• Python 3.8+ with standard library

Steps

# Example: IOC detection
import re

IOC_PATTERNS = {
    "ip": r"\b(?:\d{1,3}\.){3}\d{1,3}\b",
    "domain": r"\b[a-z0-9-]+\.[a-z]{2,}\b",
    "hash_md5": r"\b[a-f0-9]{32}\b",
    "hash_sha256": r"\b[a-f0-9]{64}\b",
}

def extract_iocs(text: str) -> dict:
    return {k: re.findall(v, text) for k, v in IOC_PATTERNS.items()}

1. Generate AIDE Configuration — Create aide.conf with monitoring rules for critical directories (/etc, /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin, /boot)
2. Initialize Baseline Database — Run aide --init to create the initial file integrity baseline
3. — Execute aide --check to compare current state against baseline