Data Engineering for Cybersecurity

Turn raw logs into real intelligence.

Security teams rely on telemetry--the continuous stream of logs, events, metrics, and signals that reveal what’s happening across systems, endpoints, and cloud services. But that data doesn’t organize itself. It has to be collected, normalized, enriched, and secured before it becomes useful. That’s where data engineering comes in.

In this hands-on guide, cybersecurity engineer James Bonifield teaches you how to design and build scalable, secure data pipelines using free, open source tools such as Filebeat, Logstash, Redis, Kafka, and Elasticsearch and more. You’ll learn how to collect telemetry from Windows including Sysmon and PowerShell events, Linux files and syslog, and streaming data from network and security appliances. You’ll then transform it into structured formats, secure it in transit, and automate your deployments using Ansible.

You’ll also learn how to:

• Encrypt and secure data in transit using TLS and SSH
• Centrally manage code and configuration files using Git
• Transform messy logs into structured events
• Enrich data with threat intelligence using Redis and Memcached
• Stream and centralize data at scale with Kafka
• Automate with Ansible for repeatable deployments

Whether you’re building a pipeline on a tight budget or deploying an enterprise-scale system, this book shows you how to centralize your security data, support real-time detection, and lay the groundwork for incident response and long-term forensics.

James Bonifield is a civilian IT Cybersecurity Specialist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) where he develops data pipelines for his team, in addition to performing analysis and handling incidents. Prior to his time at USACE, James worked in civilian roles for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and U.S. Marine Corps Forces Cyberspace Command, and as a contractor for the Defense Information Systems Agency in multiple cyber security roles.

James has delivered specialized technical training to military, civilian, and contractor teams, and federal law enforcement. He has also mentored students exploring information security.

James holds a Bachelor of Science from Western Governors University and multiple certifications including OSCP, GXPN, and CISSP. He is currently diving into cloud architecture and even more penetration testing material. James enjoys spending time with his family and scruffy rescue dogs.