Protocol Buffers (Protobuf) is a language-neutral, platform-neutral mechanism developed by Google for serializing structured data. It allows data to be encoded in a compact binary format, making it efficient for storage and transmission. In cybersecurity, threat actors may use Protobuf to obfuscate or hide the contents of their communications, such as command and control (C2) messages, making detection and analysis by security tools more challenging. Because Protobuf is widely used in legitimate applications, its presence in network traffic does not always indicate malicious activity, but its misuse can complicate threat hunting and forensic investigations. Security professionals should be aware of Protobuf's role in both benign and malicious contexts.