Foglight 5.9.3 - Security and Compliance Guide

Data entry validation for APM dashboards

For the APM dashboards, Foglight® validates user input in its browser interface and on its back-end. This includes checking that the correct data type is entered (for example, no numbers are entered in a text-only box) and restricting the length of input, such as to avoid certain potential buffer overflow attacks.

Installation of upgrades and patches

When the appliance software needs to be updated, the upgrade or patch package is digitally signed with a PGP key to prevent customers from uploading unauthorized materials. Upgrades and patches are installed using the APM > Support > Upgrade Appliances dashboard. All registered appliances are updated. Alternatively, individual appliances can be updated using an appliance’s Console Program.

Customer data protection on appliances

The following measures are implemented to protect access to customer data:

Restricted access to sensitive captured data

Appliances can be configured to hide, mask, or discard (not store) sensitive data found in hit details and in the body of HTML pages.

IMPORTANT: There is a special Foglight user role, called APM Sensitive Data Viewer, that allows users to view sensitive data in views and replay. Customers can restrict users with this role from viewing some types of sensitive data by selecting the Always Sensitive option when defining a sensitive data rule.

IMPORTANT: Applying sensitive data rules at capture time can degrade capture performance significantly.

Foglight® implements its sensitive data rules using two types of user-defined rules: Sensitive Hit Details and Sensitive Content Expression. Sensitive hit details refer to private information, such as login names and passwords, that are contained within request fields, request headers, response headers, and cookies. Sensitive content refers to private information located in the body of HTML pages, such as credit card numbers, social security numbers (or other government identification numbers), and passwords. When defining the rules, customers identify the sensitive data, specify whether the data is hidden or masked, and specify whether the data should be considered Always Sensitive. For more information, see the “Managing Security Policies” topics in the Foglight APM Administration and Configuration Guide.

When customers want to discard sensitive data before storing a hit in the Archiver, they define the sensitive data rules and define a hit analyzer with a Do not store storage policy set. The policy determines whether the entire hit is discarded or only the details or content marked Always Sensitive. For each hit that matches the hit analyzer condition, Foglight evaluates the sensitive data rules and applies the storage policy. For more information, see “Defining Hit Storage Restrictions for Hit Analyzers” in the Foglight APM Administration and Configuration Guide.