End of Life Announcement for Multiple Versions of Snort 2 and Snort 3

Multiple versions of Snort 2 and Snort 3 will be reaching End of Life this year.

As of 12/18/2025 the following versions of Snort 2 will have reached end of life and we will no longer publish Snort Talos Rules for these versions as a result, the following versions of Snort 2 will no longer be supported: 

2.9.11.1
2.9.13.0
2.9.14.1
2.9.15.1
2.9.16.0
2.9.16.1
2.9.17.0
2.9.18.1
2.9.19.0 

As of 12/18/2025, all versions of Snort 3 prior to and including Snort 3.1.9.0 will reach end of life and will no longer be supported.  

We encourage All Snort 3 users to use the Talos lightSPD rules package for downloading rules as this singular package contains configurations for every version of Snort 3 and Shared Object rules for all supported versions and architectures, in addition to the latest versions of all rules

Upgrade to the latest version of Snort 3 available here: https://snort.org/downloads 

For more information on the features and advantages of Snort 3 please visit:
https://snort.org/snort3 

For More information on using the Talos lightSPD package please visit:
https://blog.snort.org/2020/12/soft-release-lightspd-new-rules-package.html

For help downloading, installing and configuring Snort 3 please visit:
https://docs.snort.org/rules/

To take advantage of SnortML:
https://blog.snort.org/2024/08/watch-snortml-training-video.html 

To learn more about Snort 3 and Wide String Detection:
https://blog.snort.org/2025/04/in-snort-3.html 

For users who would like to continue to use Snort 2, we encourage you to update to Snort 2.9.20 as soon as possible, which can be found at https://snort.org/downloads . 

Snort 2.9.20 is the version of Snort that we will continue to support for the longest period of time. 

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us at: snort-sub@cisco.com  or join our discord: https://discord.gg/DZpdZDJtSH

Snort 2.9.18.0 end of life warning

This is the notification that SNORTⓇ 2.9.18.0 will reach its End of Life (EOL) on Nov. 30, 2021.  In accordance with our EOL policy, and reminders we've posted in the past, we are now giving users a 90-day warning.

Earlier this week, we released version 2.9.18.1, so users should upgrade to that as soon as possible. Alternatively, users can also upgrade to the latest version of Snort 3. For more on the benefits of Snort 3, click here.

Snort 2.9.8.3 end-of-life for shared object rules

Attention SNORTⓇ users and integrators:

This blog post serves as the official announcement that the shared object rules for Snort version 2.9.8.3 have now reached their end of life. This version will no longer be included in our shared object rule releases from now on. For an indeterminate amount of time, we'll still be supporting plain text rules for 2.9.8.3.

As we release new versions of Snort, occasionally we have to decommission older versions, lowering our amount of maintenance to building the ruleset for these different versions. We continually review the usage of versions and try to strive to only keep the most actively used versions around. There are several older Snort rule integrators that are using very old versions, which is the reason those versions are still around. However, we are actively working with these partners to move them to more current versions of Snort.

If you are using an older version of Snort, we encourage you to please start your upgrades to a more recent version of Snort 2.9 or Snort 3.

2.9.15.0 has reached its end of life

Attention SNORTⓇ users and integrators:

This blog post serves as the official announcement that Snort version 2.9.15.0 has officially reached its end of life. We first announced this EOL period in March. Users are encouraged to update to a more recent version of Snort as soon as possible if they are still using 2.9.15.0.

However, version 2.9.16.0 remains active, as there are still external commitments. Though users should still upgrade from that version as soon as they are able to.

As we release new versions of Snort, occasionally we have to decommission older versions, lowering our amount of maintenance to building the ruleset for these different versions.  We continually review the usage of versions and try to strive to only keep the most actively used versions around.  There are several older Snort rule integrators that are using very old versions (2.9.8.3 for example), which is the reason those versions are still around.  However, we are actively working with these partners to move them to more current versions of Snort.

If you are using an older version of Snort, we encourage you to please start your upgrades to 2.9.17.1 or Snort 3.

2.9.8.3 Shared Object end-of-life

Attention users of SNORTⓇ version 2.9.8.3: This serves as your official end-of-life notification. However, this EOL notification is a bit unique.  

We will be moving to an “end of life” for shared object rules for Snort version 2.9.8.3 in 90 days, (July 20, 2021).  After that, for an indeterminate amount of time after July 20, we will only be supporting 2.9.8.3 for plain text rules. 

If you are using version 2.9.8.3, you should immediately start making plans to move off of that version altogether. 

Please see our other announcement recently on the EOL of 2.9.15.0 and 2.9.16.0. 

Snort 2.9.11.0 end-of-life reminder

This is a reminder that SNORTⓇ version 2.9.11.0 will be shut down tomorrow, Jan. 10.

We first notified users that this version of Snort was reaching its end of life in October as the number of users began to wane. We encouraged everyone to update to the latest version of Snort to avoid any service interruptions.

We are working on revising Snort’s end-of-life policy for other versions going forward. We will begin to shut down versions of Snort that make up 10 percent or less of our downloads or superseded versions have been around for five years, which ever comes first. We will release more details about this in the future.