TheHive 5 + Cortex

TheHive is the incident response case management system. Cortex is the companion automated enrichment engine that runs analyzers against observables.

TheHive

URL: http://localhost:9100

Storage

TheHive 5 in this lab uses:

• JanusGraph + BerkeleyDB for its graph database (stored in thehivedata:/data/db)
• Elasticsearch for full-text indexing (thehive index)
• MinIO (thehive bucket) for case file attachments

Configuration

File: config/thehive/application.conf (HOCON format)

Key sections:

db.janusgraph {
  storage.backend: berkeleyje       # local embedded DB, suitable for a lab
  index.search.backend: elasticsearch
}

storage.provider: s3                # file attachments go to MinIO

Environment variables expected by the container:

Variable	Source
SECRET	THEHIVE_SECRET from .env
ELASTIC_PASSWORD	Elasticsearch auth
MINIO_ROOT_USER / MINIO_ROOT_PASSWORD	MinIO auth

First login

On first visit to http://localhost:9100:

1. Create an organisation (e.g., CTI-Lab)
2. Create an admin user
3. Log in with those credentials

See the TheHive setup guide for the full walkthrough.

---

Cortex

URL: http://localhost:9002

Cortex runs analyzer Docker images against observables (IPs, domains, hashes, emails, etc.) and returns structured reports back to TheHive.

Configuration

File: config/cortex/application.conf

Key section:

search {
  uri      = "http://elasticsearch:9200"
  index    = cortex
  user     = elastic
  password = ${ELASTIC_PASSWORD}
}

job {
  runner = [docker, process]  # runs analyzers as Docker containers
}

Installing analyzers

After first Cortex login and organization creation:

1. Go to Organization → Analyzers
2. Click Refresh analyzers — Cortex will pull the latest Cortex-Analyzers catalog from GitHub
3. Enable analyzers you need (e.g., VirusTotal_GetReport, Shodan_Host, AbuseIPDB, MISP_2_1)

For analyzers that require API keys, configure them under the analyzer settings panel.

Connecting Cortex to TheHive

See the Cortex setup guide.

Docker socket requirement

Cortex mounts /var/run/docker.sock to launch analyzer containers. Your host user must be in the docker group:

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER && newgrp docker