Security Logging and Monitoring

Implement security logging and monitoring to detect attacks, support incident response, and maintain audit trails

When to Use

• Setting up application logging for security events
• Implementing audit trails for compliance (SOC 2, HIPAA, PCI DSS)
• Building alerting for suspicious activity (brute force, privilege escalation)
• Reviewing logging practices after a security incident
• Choosing between logging frameworks and SIEM solutions

Instructions

1. Use structured logging with a consistent format. JSON-structured logs are parseable by log aggregation tools and enable querying.

import pino from 'pino';

const logger = pino({
  level: process.env.LOG_LEVEL ?? 'info',
  formatters: {
    level: (label) => ({ level: label }),
  },
  redact: ['req.headers.authorization', 'password', 'ssn', 'creditCard'],
  timestamp: pino.stdTimeFunctions.isoTime,
});

2. Log security-relevant events. At minimum, log these categories:

// Authentication events
logger.info({ event: 'auth.login.success', userId, ip, userAgent }, 'User logged in');
logger.warn({ event: 'auth.login.failure', email, ip, reason: 'invalid_password' }, 'Login failed');
logger.warn(
  { event: 'auth.login.locked', email, ip, attempts },
  'Account locked after failed attempts'
);
logger.info({ event: 'auth.logout', userId }, 'User logged out');
logger.info({ event: 'auth.password.changed', userId }, 'Password changed');

// Authorization events
logger.warn({ event: 'authz.denied', userId, resource, action }, 'Access denied');
logger.warn(
  { event: 'authz.escalation', userId, fromRole, toRole },
  'Privilege escalation attempt'
);

// Data access events
logger.info({ event: 'data.export', userId, recordCount }, 'Data exported');
logger.info({ event: 'data.delete', userId, resourceType, resourceId }, 'Record deleted');

// Input validation events
logger.warn({ event: 'input.validation', ip, field, reason }, 'Suspicious input rejected');

// System events
logger.error({ event: 'system.error', error: err.message, stack: err.stack }, 'Unhandled error');
logger.info({ event: 'system.startup', version, environment }, 'Application started');

3. Never log sensitive data. Passwords, tokens, credit card numbers, SSNs, and PII must be redacted or excluded. Configure your logger to redact sensitive fields automatically.

// Pino redaction
const logger = pino({
  redact: {
    paths: [
      'password',
      'token',
      'req.headers.authorization',
      'req.headers.cookie',
      'creditCard',
      'ssn',
      '*.password',
      '*.token',
    ],
    censor: '[REDACTED]',
  },
});

// Manual redaction for dynamic fields
function sanitizeForLogging(obj: Record<string, unknown>): Record<string, unknown> {
  const sensitive = new Set(['password', 'token', 'secret', 'ssn', 'creditCard']);
  return Object.fromEntries(
    Object.entries(obj).map(([k, v]) => [k, sensitive.has(k) ? '[REDACTED]' : v])
  );
}

4. Add request context to every log entry. Use a request ID, user ID, and session ID to correlate logs across a single request and user session.

import { randomUUID } from 'node:crypto';

app.use((req, res, next) => {
  req.requestId = (req.headers['x-request-id'] as string) ?? randomUUID();
  req.log = logger.child({
    requestId: req.requestId,
    userId: req.user?.id,
    ip: req.ip,
    method: req.method,
    path: req.path,
  });
  res.setHeader('X-Request-Id', req.requestId);
  next();
});

5. Implement middleware to log all HTTP requests.

app.use((req, res, next) => {
  const start = Date.now();

  res.on('finish', () => {
    const duration = Date.now() - start;
    const logFn =
      res.statusCode >= 500 ? req.log.error : res.statusCode >= 400 ? req.log.warn : req.log.info;

    logFn(
      {
        event: 'http.request',
        status: res.statusCode,
        duration,
        contentLength: res.getHeader('content-length'),
      },
      `${req.method} ${req.path} ${res.statusCode} ${duration}ms`
    );
  });

  next();
});

6. Set up alerting for suspicious patterns. Define alert rules for:

   • Multiple failed login attempts from the same IP (> 5 in 5 minutes)
   • Login from a new country or device
   • Privilege escalation attempts
   • Unusual data access patterns (bulk exports, after-hours access)
   • Sudden spike in 4xx or 5xx errors

7. Ship logs to a centralized aggregation service. Do not rely on local log files — use Datadog, Elastic/ELK, Splunk, or CloudWatch for centralized storage, search, and alerting.

8. Implement audit logs for compliance-sensitive operations. Audit logs are immutable, timestamped records of who did what and when.

interface AuditEntry {
  timestamp: string;
  actor: { userId: string; ip: string; userAgent: string };
  action: string;
  resource: { type: string; id: string };
  changes?: { field: string; from: unknown; to: unknown }[];
  result: 'success' | 'failure';
}

async function auditLog(entry: AuditEntry): Promise<void> {
  // Write to append-only store (database, S3, dedicated audit service)
  await db.auditLogs.create({ data: entry });
  logger.info({ event: 'audit', ...entry }, `Audit: ${entry.action}`);
}

9. Set log retention policies. Balance storage costs with compliance requirements. Common retention periods: 90 days for general logs, 1 year for security events, 7 years for financial audit logs.

10. Test your logging and alerting. Regularly verify that security events generate the expected logs and that alerts fire correctly. Include logging verification in security testing.

Details

OWASP Top 10 A09 — Security Logging and Monitoring Failures: Insufficient logging delays detection of breaches. The average time to detect a breach is 200+ days. Proper logging reduces this to hours or days.

Log levels for security events:

• ERROR

  : System failures, unhandled exceptions, security control failures

• WARN

  : Failed authentication, authorization denials, input validation failures, rate limiting triggered

• INFO

  : Successful authentication, significant user actions, configuration changes

• DEBUG

  : Detailed request/response data (never in production for security events)

Log injection prevention: User-controlled data in log messages can inject fake log entries. Use structured logging (JSON fields) instead of string interpolation. Never do

logger.info('User logged in: ' + username)

— use

logger.info({ username }, 'User logged in')

.

Compliance requirements:

• SOC 2: Log access to sensitive data, authentication events, system changes
• HIPAA: Log access to PHI, including read access
• PCI DSS: Log all access to cardholder data, authentication events, and admin actions with 1-year retention
• GDPR: Log data processing activities, data subject requests

Common mistakes:

• Logging passwords, tokens, or PII in plain text
• Using

  console.log

  instead of a structured logger
• Not correlating logs across microservices (missing request IDs)
• Logging to local files without rotation (disk fills up)
• Setting up alerting but never testing if alerts actually fire

Source

https://cheatsheetseries.owasp.org/cheatsheets/Logging_Cheat_Sheet.html

Process

1. Read the instructions and examples in this document.
2. Apply the patterns to your implementation, adapting to your specific context.
3. Verify your implementation against the details and edge cases listed above.

Harness Integration

• Type: knowledge — this skill is a reference document, not a procedural workflow.
• No tools or state — consumed as context by other skills and agents.

Success Criteria

• The patterns described in this document are applied correctly in the implementation.
• Edge cases and anti-patterns listed in this document are avoided.