RITA
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Open source framework for network traffic analysis that ingests Zeek logs to detect beaconing, long connections, DNS tunneling, and threat intel matches.
Summary
RITA is an open-source network-analysis framework, free to use, that ingests Zeek logs in TSVTSVA plain-text format storing tabular data with fields separated by tab characters, making it easy for cyber tools to parse and exchange structured records without a CSV parser's quoting complexity. or JSON format to detect signs of compromise on a network. It runs as a command-line tool installed via Docker, importing logs into a named database that can then be filtered, sorted, and exported to CSV, which makes it a fit for SOCSOCA security operations center, the team or function that monitors threats, investigates alerts and coordinates incident response. Its work can be internal, outsourced or shared. analysts and threat hunters who already run Zeek sensors rather than teams starting from raw packet capturepacket captureA packet capture, recorded network packets that can be inspected later. Analysts use it to reconstruct communication and investigate protocol behavior or suspicious traffic.. Its detection set covers beaconing, long connections, DNS tunneling, and threat intel feed matches, and the README points hunters wanting more automation and visualization toward the vendor's paid AC-Hunter product. First committed in 2024, RITA has 10 contributors and 13 releases in the tracked window, with a release as recently as 106 days ago.
Open source framework for network traffic analysis that ingests Zeek logs to detect beaconing, long connections, DNS tunneling, and threat intel matches.
How RITA helps
Which internal hosts are showing signs of beaconing out to an external address?
scans imported connection logs for regular, low-variance time intervals between a host pair and reports the pairs whose timing pattern looks scripted rather than human
Which connections on my network ran far longer than a normal session should?
sorts imported connections by duration and flags the long-lived sessions that stand out from typical traffic, a common sign of an attacker holding a channel open
Is anything on my network using DNS queries to move data rather than resolve names?
inspects the DNS records in the imported logs for the query patterns and payload sizes typical of tunneling and lists the domains involved
Which hosts or domains in my logs match known-bad indicators?
checks the imported dataset against threat intel feeds and reports any host or domain that matches an entry, tied back to the connection it appeared in
How do I get a shortlist of suspicious activity out of a week of Zeek logs for a report?
imports the logs into a named dataset that can then be filtered and sorted on the command line and exported to CSV for further work outside the tool
Can I narrow a large imported dataset down to just the connections that matter for this hunt?
applies filters and sort order (such as by duration) against the named database so only the matching subset of connections is returned
Languages
Command line
| option | found in | since | description |
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Values are placeholders taken from each option’s declared default. Nothing is executed here — the output shown is a recording of a run that already happened.
Score card
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Shipping velocity releases a month, last 12 months
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Documentation quality release-notes rubric, 0–100
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Breaking-change discipline how rarely a release breaks users, and notice given
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Maintenance risk quiet time against its own cadence, maintainers
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Innovation & surface new capabilities, API and MCP surface
- Community health
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Contributor trend distinct committers, this year against last
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Maintainer concentration bus factor now against a year ago
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Issue backlog trend issues closed per issue opened, 12 months
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Responsiveness median time to a maintainer’s first reply
Nine scores for RITA, each built from the releases, notes and API history this site tracks — and, on Researcher and Business, where it stands among every measured tool in its category and how that has moved.
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Blank means never measured; nothing here is a filled-in zero.
Peer standings are included with Researcher and Business. See how this tool ranks against its competitors, using data we don't publish anywhere else.
See plans →Each score is 0–100 on a published rubric, derived from data this site already shows. A dimension we cannot measure says so — it is never scored 0 and never enters a rank.
How this is scored
- Shipping velocity — releases a month over the last 12 months, on a log scale where 16 a month scores 100. Needs 3 releases in the window.
- Documentation quality — the release-notes rubric published on the analytics page, unchanged.
- Breaking-change discipline — the share of releases carrying a breaking change (none scores 100, half or more scores 0). Only projects that label breaking changes are measured: a clean record cannot be told from an unlabelled one.
- Maintenance risk — quiet time measured against the tool's own release cadence (quiet longer than 90 days and three typical gaps scores 0), plus the number of active maintainers and whether contributors are growing, where known. Higher is lower risk.
- Innovation & surface — new capabilities in the feature ledger this year, API and MCP operations added, and the share of commits that are features: the mean of whichever we hold.
- Community health (open-source tools only) — each is a direction, not a size: contributors this year against last, the bus factor now against a year ago, and issues closed per issue opened, where steady scores 50, doubled 100 and halved 0; plus the median time to a maintainer's first reply (an hour scores about 100, a month or more 0). A commercial card has no repository and carries none of the four.
- Documented delivery (commercial tools) — when a vendor's documented new capabilities have slowed against its own baseline, that counts against the overall standing as heavily as two low dimensions. Steady delivery, or too little history to judge, leaves the standing alone; it is never a sixth score.
- Open-source tools are scored on repository signals; commercial tools on their published changelog. Ranks compare tools within one category and one profile and need at least five measured peers; the overall standing needs three ranked dimensions. Best-in-breed or consolidator is a shape, not a quality, and is never scored.
Release-note detail over time
See how much detail RITA puts in its release notes, quarter by quarter, and compare it with tracked tools in the same category. This history uses up to ten retained, reviewed notes per tool; sparse or blank older quarters may reflect that limit.
Checking release-note history…
Releases
2 entries
No entries match these filters.
- August 20241
- June 20241
Project health
Issue, contributor and maintainer activity in activecm/rita, 2023-10 – 2026-09, as of 2026-09-25. Twelve-month figures first; the trend lines run the whole window.
- Contributors 6 +5 vs prior 12 months
- Maintainers 3 +2 joined · −0 left, last 12 months
- Bus factor 2 committers behind half the commits
- Community-filed 100% of issues opened, last 12 months
- Median time to close 225 days first maintainer reply 39 days
- Open backlog 16 of 43 issues ever filed
- Issues opened / month 0 · 0 communitymaintainers
- Open backlog 16
- Contributors / month 0
- Commits / month 0
- Stars 639
- other 100%
Counts from the project's public repository and git history; no individuals are identified. Maintainers are the committers covering 80% of the last year's commits. how we measure this
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