ReefWatch

Continuous local security monitoring daemon for Linux and macOS. Detects brute-force attacks, malware, privilege escalation, suspicious processes, file tampering, cryptominers, and network anomalies using YARA, Sigma, and custom detection rules. Runs as a background process and alerts only when real threats are found. Use when the user wants host-level intrusion detection, security monitoring, threat scanning, or asks about suspicious activity on their machine.

Audits

Malicious

ClawScanPass

Agentic behavior and permission review.

Static analysisMalicious

Pattern checks against bundled files.

VirusTotalMalicious

Multi-engine malware detections and file reputation.

Install

openclaw skills install reefwatch

ReefWatch 🪸

What it does

ReefWatch is a lightweight host-based intrusion detection system (HIDS) that runs as a background daemon on the same machine as OpenClaw. It continuously monitors the local system for security threats and alerts the user through OpenClaw's messaging channels ONLY when something suspicious is detected.

Architecture

ReefWatch runs as an independent Python process (not consuming LLM tokens) and communicates with OpenClaw via the local webhook endpoint (/hooks/wake) to alert the user.

[Collectors] → [Detection Engines] → [Alert Manager] → [OpenClaw Webhook] → [User]

Detection Engines

YARA: File and process scanning for malware, webshells, miners, ransomware
Sigma: Log-based detection for brute-force, privilege escalation, lateral movement
Custom Rules: System-specific checks (file integrity, process anomalies, network connections)

Commands

Start monitoring

When the user asks to start ReefWatch or enable security monitoring:

Verify dependencies are installed:

pip3 install -r ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/reefwatch/requirements.txt --quiet

Download initial rulesets (first time only):

python3 ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/reefwatch/setup_rules.py

Start the daemon:

nohup python3 ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/reefwatch/reefwatch_daemon.py \
  --webhook-url "http://127.0.0.1:18789/hooks/wake" \
  --webhook-token "${OPENCLAW_HOOKS_TOKEN}" \
  --config ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/reefwatch/reefwatch_config.yaml \
  > ~/.openclaw/logs/reefwatch.log 2>&1 &
echo $! > /tmp/reefwatch.pid

Confirm to the user: "🪸 ReefWatch is now active. I'll alert you if any threats are detected."

Stop monitoring

kill $(cat /tmp/reefwatch.pid 2>/dev/null) 2>/dev/null && rm -f /tmp/reefwatch.pid

Confirm: "🪸 ReefWatch stopped."

Check status

if kill -0 $(cat /tmp/reefwatch.pid 2>/dev/null) 2>/dev/null; then
  echo "ReefWatch is running (PID: $(cat /tmp/reefwatch.pid))"
  tail -5 ~/.openclaw/logs/reefwatch.log
else
  echo "ReefWatch is not running"
fi

View recent alerts

tail -20 ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/reefwatch/alert_history.jsonl | python3 -c "import sys,json; [print(json.dumps(json.loads(l),indent=2)) for l in sys.stdin]"

Update rules

python3 ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/reefwatch/setup_rules.py --update

Run manual scan

When the user asks to scan a specific file or directory:

python3 ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/reefwatch/manual_scan.py --target <path>

Alert Format

When ReefWatch detects a threat, it wakes OpenClaw with a message like:

🔴 REEFWATCH ALERT
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Type: Brute-force SSH attempt
Severity: HIGH
Source: auth.log
Detail: 47 failed login attempts from 192.168.1.105 in 2 minutes
Rule: sigma/ssh_brute_force
Time: 2026-02-22 15:43:21
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Forward this alert to the user immediately through their active messaging channel. If the user asks for more details, check the full log at ~/.openclaw/logs/reefwatch.log.

Important Notes

ReefWatch does NOT consume LLM tokens while monitoring. It only triggers OpenClaw when alerting.
On macOS, some collectors require granting Full Disk Access or specific permissions.
YARA scanning can be CPU-intensive; default config scans changed files only, not full disk.
The daemon auto-recovers if a collector fails; it logs the error and continues with remaining collectors.
All data stays local. ReefWatch never sends system data to external servers (only to OpenClaw's local webhook).