IMPORTANT: No additional bug fixes or documentation updates will be released for this version. For the latest information, see the current release documentation.
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Elastic Docs ›Elastic Observability [8.13] ›Application performance monitoring (APM) ›Elastic APM features

Data security

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Data security

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When setting up Elastic APM, it’s essential to review all captured data carefully to ensure it doesn’t contain sensitive information like passwords, credit card numbers, or health data. In addition, you may wish to filter out other identifiable information, like IP addresses, user agent information, or form field data.

Depending on the type of data, we offer several different ways to filter, manipulate, or obfuscate sensitive information during or before ingestion:

In addition to utilizing filters, you should regularly review the sensitive fields table to ensure sensitive data is not being ingested. If it is, it’s possible to remove or redact it. See Delete sensitive data for more information.

Built-in data filters
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Built-in data filters allow you to filter or turn off ingestion of the following types of data:

Data type Common sensitive data

HTTP headers

Passwords, credit card numbers, authorization, etc.

HTTP bodies

Passwords, credit card numbers, etc.

Personal data

Client IP address and user agent.

Real user monitoring data

URLs visited, click events, user browser errors, resources used, etc.

Database statements

Sensitive user or business information
Custom filters
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Custom filters allow you to filter or redact other types of APM data on ingestion:

Ingest pipelines

Applied at ingestion time. All agents and fields are supported. Data leaves the instrumented service. There are no performance overhead implications on the instrumented service.

APM agent filters

Not supported by all agents. Data is sanitized before leaving the instrumented service. Potential overhead implications on the instrumented service
Sensitive fields
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You should review the following fields regularly to ensure sensitive data is not being captured:

Field Description Remedy

client.ip

The client IP address, as forwarded by proxy.

Personal data

http.request.body.original

The body of the monitored HTTP request.

HTTP bodies

http.request.headers

The canonical headers of the monitored HTTP request.

HTTP headers

http.request.socket.remote_address

The address of the last proxy or end-user (if no proxy).

Custom filters

http.response.headers

The canonical headers of the monitored HTTP response.

HTTP headers

process.args

Process arguments.

Database statements

span.db.statement

Database statement.

Database statements

stacktrace.vars

A flat mapping of local variables captured in the stack frame

Custom filters

url.query

The query string of the request, e.g. ?pass=hunter2.

Custom filters

user.*

Logged-in user information.

Custom filters

user_agent.*

Device and version making the network request.

Personal data
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