Implementing TAXII Server with OpenTAXII

Overview

TAXII (Trusted Automated eXchange of Intelligence Information) is an OASIS standard protocol for exchanging cyber threat intelligence over HTTPS. OpenTAXII is an open-source TAXII server implementation by EclecticIQ that supports TAXII 1.x, while the OASIS cti-taxii-server provides a TAXII 2.1 reference implementation. This skill covers deploying a TAXII server, configuring collections for threat intelligence feeds, publishing STIX 2.1 bundles, and integrating with SIEM/SOAR platforms for automated indicator ingestion.

Prerequisites

• Python 3.9+ with medallion, stix2, taxii2-client, opentaxii, cabby libraries
• Docker and Docker Compose for containerized deployment
• Understanding of STIX 2.1 objects (Indicator, Malware, Attack Pattern, Relationship)
• Familiarity with REST APIs and HTTPS configuration
• TLS certificates for production deployment

Key Concepts

TAXII 2.1 Architecture

TAXII 2.1 defines three services: Discovery (find available API roots), API Root (entry point for collections), and Collections (repositories of CTI objects). Collections support two access models: the Collection endpoint allows consumers to poll for objects, and the Status endpoint tracks the result of add operations. TAXII uses HTTP content negotiation with application/taxii+json;version=2.1.