Project Report Template

This template is designed to structure a project summary for quick reading by a potential employer, hiring manager, or technical lead. It focuses on demonstrating problem-solving, technical implementation, and outcomes.

Project Title:

  • (A clear, descriptive name for the project)

1. Executive Summary

  • (1-2 sentences) A high-level pitch of the project. What was the core problem and what was the result?
  • Technologies Used: List, Of, Key, Technologies, Like, Python, AWS S3, Docker, Wazuh
  • Project Link: [Live Demo](http://example.com) or [GitHub Repo](http://github.com/link)

2. The Problem & Objective

  • (1 paragraph) Describe the scenario or challenge you were trying to address. What was the goal? Why was this project necessary or interesting?
  • Example: “Standard home routers lack visibility into network threats. My objective was to build a low-cost, centralized security monitoring system for my home lab using open-source tools to detect and analyze potential intrusions in real-time.”

3. The Implementation & Process

  • (Bulleted list or short paragraphs) Detail the key steps you took to build the solution. This is where you showcase your technical process. Focus on the “how” and “why” of your decisions.
  • Example Step 1: Infrastructure Setup. Deployed three Ubuntu Server VMs in VirtualBox, configured with a host-only network to simulate an isolated corporate environment.
  • Example Step 2: SIEM Installation. Installed and configured a Wazuh server on the primary monitoring VM, ensuring agent communication ports were correctly firewalled.
  • Example Step 3: Log Ingestion & Testing. Deployed Wazuh agents to the target VMs. Generated test traffic using Nmap from a Kali Linux VM to verify that logs were being collected and that basic intrusion detection rules were firing correctly.

4. Challenges & Resolutions

  • (1-2 bullet points) This is a critical section. Describe a specific technical hurdle you faced and how you overcame it. This demonstrates troubleshooting and resilience.
  • Example Challenge: Log Parsing Failure. Initially, logs from my custom web application were not being parsed correctly by Wazuh. The default decoders did not recognize the log format.
  • Example Resolution: Custom Decoder Development. I researched the Wazuh XML decoder syntax and wrote a custom decoder and rule set to correctly identify and categorize the specific event types from my application logs, which I then tested and deployed to the server.

5. Outcome & Results

  • (1 paragraph) What was the final result? Was the objective met? What did you learn?
  • Example: “The project was successful. The SIEM now provides real-time visibility into the lab network, successfully detecting and alerting on reconnaissance scans, brute-force attempts, and specific web application attacks. This project significantly deepened my understanding of log management, SIEM architecture, and the importance of custom detection rules.”