---
title: CNCF Falco
description: CNCF Falco is an open-source runtime security tool that detects anomalous activity in Linux hosts, containers, Kubernetes, and cloud environments. You...
url: https://www.elastic.co/docs/solutions/security/integrations/cncf-falco
products:
  - Elastic Cloud Serverless
  - Elastic Security
applies_to:
  - Serverless Security projects: Generally available
  - Elastic Stack: Generally available
---

# CNCF Falco
CNCF Falco is an open-source runtime security tool that detects anomalous activity in Linux hosts, containers, Kubernetes, and cloud environments. You can ingest Falco alerts into Elasticsearch to view them on Elastic Security's Alerts page and incorporate them into your security workflows by using Falcosidekick, a proxy forwarder which can send alerts from your Falco deployments to Elasticsearch.
First, you’ll need to configure Elastic Security to receive data from Falco, then you’ll need to configure Falco and Falcosidekick to send data to Elasticsearch.

## Configure Elastic Security to receive Falco data

In Elastic Security:
1. Click **Add integrations**.
2. Search the Integrations page for `Falco`, then select it.
3. Go to the Falco integration’s **Settings** tab.
4. Click **Install Falco**, then confirm by clicking **Install Falco** again. Installation should take less than a minute.

Elastic Security is now ready to receive data from Falco. The Falco integration page now has an **Assets** tab where you can inspect the newly installed assets that help to ingest Falco data.
Next, to make alerts from Falco appear on Elastic Security's Alerts page:
1. Find the **Rules** page in the navigation menu or by using the [global search field](https://www.elastic.co/docs/explore-analyze/find-and-organize/find-apps-and-objects).
2. Click **Detection rules (SIEM)**.
3. Search for a rule called `External Alerts`. Install it if necessary, and enable it.


## Configure Falco and Falcosidekick

You can either:
- [Send Falco data to Elasticsearch from virtual machines (VMs)](#ingest-falco-setup-falco-vm); or,
- [Send Falco data to Elasticsearch from Kubernetes](#ingest-falco-setup-falco-kubernetes).


### Configure Falco and Falcosidekick for VMs

Multiple methods for configuring Falco to send data from VMs to Elasticsearch are available. This guide uses the [Falco sidekick on Docker using environment variables](https://github.com/falcosecurity/falcosidekick/blob/master/docs/outputs/elasticsearch.md) method.

### Configure Falco for VMs:

1. Refer to Falco’s documentation to [install Falco on the Linux VMs you wish to monitor](https://falco.org/docs/setup/packages/).
2. Once Falco is installed, update `/etc/falco/falco.yaml` as follows:
   1. Enable JSON output: `json_output: true`
2. Enable HTTP output: under `http_output`, for the `url` value, enter the `url:port` where Falcosidekick will listen. For example, if Falcosidekick is running on localhost:
   ```
   http_output:
     enabled: true
     url: "http://0.0.0.0:2801/"
   ```


### Configure Falcosidekick for VMs:

1. Refer to Falcosidekick’s documentation to [install Falcosidekick](https://github.com/falcosecurity/falcosidekick?tab=readme-ov-file#installation).
2. Use the [Falcosidekick on Docker using environment variables](https://github.com/falcosecurity/falcosidekick/blob/master/docs/outputs/elasticsearch.md) method and set your environment variables as follows:
   1. `ELASTICSEARCH_HOSTPORT`: Your Elasticsearch endpoint URL, which can be found under **Connection details** on the upper right of the **Integrations** page in Kibana.
2. `ELASTICSEARCH_INDEX`: The Elasticsearch index where you want to store Falco logs.
   <important>
   Your `ELASTICSEARCH_INDEX` value must match `logs-falco.alerts-*`.
   </important>
3. `ELASTICSEARCH_SUFFIX`: The frequency with which you want the Elasticsearch index suffix to change. Either `daily`, `monthly`, `annually`, or `none`.
4. `ELASTICSEARCH_APIKEY`: The recommended way to authenticate to Elasticsearch, by providing an [API key](https://www.elastic.co/docs/deploy-manage/api-keys/elasticsearch-api-keys). Note that support for this environment variable starts with Falcosidekick version 2.30. You can access the latest version on Falcosidekick’s [Docker Hub](https://hub.docker.com/r/falcosecurity/falcosidekick).
5. `ELASTICSEARCH_USERNAME` and `ELASTICSEARCH_PASSWORD`: The username and password for an account on your Elasticsearch instance. Authentication using these environment variables is not supported on Elastic Cloud Serverless.
6. `ELASTICSEARCH_MUTUALTLS` and `ELASTICSEARCH_CHECKCERT`: For security reasons, we recommend setting these to `true`.

For example:
```
docker run -d -p 2801:2801
           -e ELASTICSEARCH_HOSTPORT=https://test-falco.es.us-west2.gcp.elastic-cloud.com
           -e ELASTICSEARCH_INDEX=logs-falco.alerts-all
           -e ELASTICSEARCH_SUFFIX=none
           -e ELASTICSEARCH_APIKEY=XXXXXXXXXXXXX
           -e ELASTICSEARCH_MUTUALTLS=true
           -e ELASTICSEARCH_CHECKCERT=true falcosecurity/falcosidekick
```

<important>
  The Elasticsearch account used to authenticate Falcosidekick only needs sufficient privileges to create and write to new indices. We recommend following the principle of least privilege when provisioning this account.
</important>

After installing and configuring Falcosidekick, restart Falco with `sudo systemctl restart falco`. Falcosidekick should start sending alerts to Elasticsearch.

## Configure Falco and Falcosidekick for Kubernetes

1. Add the Falco [Helm charts](https://github.com/falcosecurity/charts/blob/master/README.md):
   ```bash
   helm repo add falcosecurity https://falcosecurity.github.io/charts
   helm repo update
   ```
2. Next, install Falco and Falcosidekick using the `falcosecurity/falco` Helm chart with [appropriate values](https://github.com/falcosecurity/falcosidekick/blob/master/docs/outputs/elasticsearch.md) for each of the `falcosidekick.config.elasticsearch.*` fields:
   ```
   helm install falco falcosecurity/falco \
           --set falcosidekick.enabled=true \
           --set tty=true \
           --set driver.kind=modern_ebpf \
           --set collectors.kubernetes.enabled=true \
           --set falcosidekick.config.elasticsearch.hostport="https://<ES host>" \
           --set falcosidekick.config.elasticsearch.username="<elastic>" \
           --set falcosidekick.config.elasticsearch.password="<password>" \
           --set falcosidekick.config.elasticsearch.index="logs-falco.alerts-all" \
           --set falcosidekick.config.elasticsearch.suffix="none"
   ```