Day 65: Field-Level Encryption for Sensitive Log Data
Module 3: Advanced Log Processing Features | Week 10: Security and Compliance
Building Production-Grade Data Protection for Distributed Log Processing Systems
What We'll Build Today
Today you'll create a production-grade field-level encryption system that automatically protects sensitive data in your logs while keeping operational information readable. Here's what we're building:
Core System Components:
Intelligent PII detection engine that spots emails, phone numbers, and sensitive field names
AES-256-GCM encryption engine with automatic key rotation
Processing pipeline that encrypts only sensitive fields
Real-time web dashboard for monitoring and testing
Comprehensive audit system for compliance tracking
Key Capabilities:
Process 50+ logs per second with encryption overhead under 5ms
Automatically detect and encrypt PII while preserving debug data
Rotate encryption keys every 30 days for security
Provide complete audit trails for GDPR/HIPAA compliance
Integrate seamlessly with existing log processing infrastructure
Understanding the Challenge
Yesterday you implemented role-based access control that determines who can access logs. Today, we're solving an equally critical challenge: protecting sensitive data within those logs through field-level encryption.
Consider this scenario: Your e-commerce platform processes millions of transactions daily, generating logs containing user emails, phone numbers, and payment references. Compliance teams demand PII protection, but engineering teams need logs for debugging. Traditional all-or-nothing encryption makes logs useless for analysis.
Field-level encryption solves this elegantly - encrypting only sensitive fields while leaving operational data readable for debugging and monitoring.