Mon. Jan 23rd, 2023

Data hiding when viewing logs

System logs can include a large amount of personally identifiable information, including:

  • Username
  • Your IP address
  • Action performed
  • Application responses (eg a network filter blocking access to a questionable website)
  • Date and time

Combining all of this information could allow for a level of monitoring that isn’t covered by an IT Use Policy. On other occasions, it may just be that some of that data should not be shared outside of an organisation – for instance, a software error may be logged alongside a lot of unnecessary information: the answer in this case is data hiding, making sure that data is obfuscated or removed before subsequent use.