# Is elasticsearch documents stored on file encrypted?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-elasticsearch-documents-stored-on-file-encrypted/328652>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [March 28, 2023, 12:30am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-elasticsearch-documents-stored-on-file-encrypted/328652 "2023-03-28T00:30:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![eleong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@eleong](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/eleong)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2023, 12:30am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-elasticsearch-documents-stored-on-file-encrypted/328652/1 "2023-03-28T00:30:44Z")

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Hi,

We have a compliance audit coming up soon and one of the requirement is that the information stored in Elastic (as a SIEM) must be encrypted.

Now, I understand that Elastic don't do encryption because these documents / information are meant for searching purposes and I have explored dm-crypt (but I prefer not to do disk encryption if possible).

Tried exploring the /var/lib/elasticsearch/indices folders and the information don't seemed to be "human-readable". **Does this means Elastic hashes or employ some encryption mechanism to make it non human-readable?**

Anyone care to shed some light on this?

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**Author:** ![warkolm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/warkolm/32/39224_2.png) [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2023, 12:32am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-elasticsearch-documents-stored-on-file-encrypted/328652/2 "2023-03-28T00:32:25Z")

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> [@eleong](#):
>
> **Does this means Elastic hashes or employ some encryption mechanism to make it non human-readable?**

Nope, it's just a binary encoding that is not encrypted.

You need to use something like dm-crypt here, it's what we recommend.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![eleong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@eleong](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/eleong)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2023, 12:50am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-elasticsearch-documents-stored-on-file-encrypted/328652/3 "2023-03-28T00:50:39Z")

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Speedy reply 🙂

Thanks for the advise

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [April 25, 2023, 12:51am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-elasticsearch-documents-stored-on-file-encrypted/328652/4 "2023-04-25T00:51:32Z")

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