YaraHunter
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YaraHunter scans container images, running Docker containers, and filesystems to find indicators of malware using a YARA ruleset.
Summary
YaraHunter is an open-source malware-scanning tool, distributed under its own GitHub license, that checks container images, running Docker containers, and filesystems against YARA rulesets to find indicators of compromiseindicators of compromiseAn indicator of compromise, an observable clue that may point to malicious activity, such as a suspicious file hash or domain. It is evidence to investigate, rather than proof by itself.. It runs as a command-line tool, distributed as a Docker container for portability, and produces JSON output meant to be parsed by other automation rather than read directly, which fits it into CI/CD build pipelines as well as ad hoc runtime checks. It is aimed at security and DevOps teams responsible for verifying build artifacts and live containers rather than at endpoint or network defenders. It sits in the malware-analysis category and is described in its own README as a work in progress that will eventually be folded into Deepfence's ThreatMapper platform. Since its first commit in 2022, it has drawn 20 contributors and seen 11 commits and 10 releases in the past year, so development continues at a modest but steady pace.
YaraHunter scans container images, running Docker containers, and filesystems to find indicators of malware using a YARA ruleset.
How YaraHunter helps
Does this container image contain files matching known malware signatures?
runs the YARA ruleset against every file in the image and lists each match by rule name and file path, before the image is deployed anywhere
Is a running container showing signs of compromise right now?
scans the live filesystem of the container against the same YARA ruleset and reports matches, useful when unusual network or CPU activity raises suspicion
Did a build artifact pick up malware during the CI/CD pipeline?
scans the built image or filesystem as a pipeline step and emits JSON results a build script can check before allowing the artifact to ship
Where exactly in a file does an indicator of compromise sit?
reports the byte offset of each match alongside the rule and file name, so a match can be located without re-scanning by hand
Is a suspect file itself the threat, or just a config or script that happened to match?
can scan non-executable files such as scripts, documents and configs as well as binaries, though by default it skips non-executable files to cut noise, so that coverage depends on turning the default back off
Can a filesystem be checked for compromise without packaging it as a container?
points the same YARA-based scan directly at a local filesystem and returns the same match report, independent of any image or running container
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 YaraHunter, 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 YaraHunter 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
5 entries
No entries match these filters.
- April 20251
- November 20241
- July 20241
- October 20231
- September 20231
Project health
Issue, contributor and maintainer activity in deepfence/YaraHunter, 2023-10 – 2026-09, as of 2026-09-25. Twelve-month figures first; the trend lines run the whole window.
- Contributors 1 −3 vs prior 12 months
- Maintainers 1 +0 joined · −1 left, last 12 months
- Bus factor 1 committers behind half the commits
- Community-filed not measured of issues opened, last 12 months
- Median time to close not measured issues closed, last 12 months
- Open backlog 6 of 19 issues ever filed
- Issues opened / month 0 · 0 communitymaintainers
- Open backlog 6
- Contributors / month 0
- Commits / month 0
- Stars 1,319
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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