Verbose logging can leak secrets
Turning up logging to diagnose something frequently starts recording things you would never store deliberately.
Full request bodies, headers containing tokens, query parameters with credentials, stack traces with configuration. Those then flow into a central system with wide access and long retention. The setting gets enabled during an incident, when nobody is thinking about data protection, and is often never turned back down.
More on Logging and telemetry
- A log records an observation, not objective truthThe shadow, not the thing
- Central logging reduces local erasure riskIt left before you got there
- Retention determines how far back you can investigateThe line only goes back so far
- Telemetry coverage should map to detection questionsPoint it at the question
- Parsing errors can silently break detectionsSilence is not the same as clear
- High-volume logs can hide high-value eventsBuried by the ordinary