pySigma SQLite Backend

This is the SQLite backend for pySigma. It provides the package sigma.backends.sqlite with the sqliteBackend class.

This backend also aims to be compatible with Zircolite which uses pure SQLite queries to perform SIGMA-based detection on EVTX, Auditd, Sysmon for linux, XML or JSONL/NDJSON Logs.

It supports the following output formats:

• default: plain SQLite queries
• zircolite : SQLite queries in JSON format for Zircolite

This backend is currently maintained by:

• wagga

Supported Features

Sigma Modifiers

Modifier	Description	SQLite Implementation
contains	Substring matching	LIKE '%value%'
startswith	Prefix matching	LIKE 'value%'
endswith	Suffix matching	LIKE '%value'
all	All values must match	Multiple AND conditions
re	Regular expressions	REGEXP
cidr	CIDR network matching	Expanded to LIKE patterns
cased	Case-sensitive matching	GLOB
fieldref	Compare two fields	field1=field2 or with LIKE for startswith/endswith/contains
exists	Field existence check	field = field
gt, gte, lt, lte	Numeric comparisons	>, >=, <, <=
hour, minute, day, week, month, year	Timestamp part extraction	strftime()

Correlation Rules

The backend supports Sigma correlation rules with the following types:

Correlation Type	Description
event_count	Count events matching conditions
value_count	Count distinct field values
temporal	Events from multiple rules occurring within a timespan
temporal_ordered	Events occurring in a specific order within a timespan
value_sum	Sum of field values
value_avg	Average of field values

Correlation rules support group-by for grouping results and timespan for temporal constraints.

SQLite Requirements for Correlation

For correlation rules to work properly, your SQLite database must meet the following requirements:

Requirement	Description
Timestamp field	Required for temporal correlations. Must be in a format compatible with SQLite's julianday() function (ISO8601, Julian day number, or Unix timestamp)

Configurable Parameters:

The backend provides configurable parameters for correlation queries:

Parameter	Default	Description
timestamp_field	timestamp	Field name containing the event timestamp

Example usage with custom parameters:

backend = sqliteBackend(correlation_methods=["default"])
backend.timestamp_field = "event_time"

Notes:

• The timestamp field is used with julianday() for time difference calculations in temporal correlations
• For multi-rule correlations (temporal, temporal_ordered), the backend automatically adds a sigma_rule_id column to identify which rule matched each event
• Timespan values are converted to seconds internally for comparison

Other Features

• NULL value handling: field: null → field IS NULL
• Boolean values: true/false support
• Field name quoting: Special characters in field names are quoted with backticks
• Wildcard escaping: Proper escaping of % and _ characters in values

Known issues/limitations

• Full text search support will need some work and is not a priority since it needs virtual tables on SQLite side

Quick Start

Example script (default output) with sysmon pipeline

Add pipelines

poetry add pysigma-pipeline-sysmon
poetry add pysigma-pipeline-windows

Convert a rule

from sigma.collection import SigmaCollection
from sigma.backends.sqlite import sqlite
from sigma.pipelines.sysmon import sysmon_pipeline
from sigma.pipelines.windows import windows_logsource_pipeline

from sigma.processing.resolver import ProcessingPipelineResolver

# Create the pipeline resolver
piperesolver = ProcessingPipelineResolver()
# Add pipelines
piperesolver.add_pipeline_class(sysmon_pipeline()) # Syssmon  
piperesolver.add_pipeline_class(windows_logsource_pipeline()) # Windows
# Create a combined pipeline
combined_pipeline = piperesolver.resolve(piperesolver.pipelines)
# Instantiate backend using the combined pipeline
sqlite_backend = sqlite.sqliteBackend(combined_pipeline)

rule = SigmaCollection.from_yaml(
r"""
    title: Test
    status: test
    logsource:
        category: test_category
        product: test_product
    detection:
        sel:
            fieldA: valueA
            fieldB: valueB
        condition: sel
""")

print(sqlite_backend.convert(rule)[0])

Running

poetry run python3 example.py