How to Secure Elasticsearch: Practical Strategies and Free Guard Plugin

In early 2019 Elasticsearch suffered multiple data breaches, exposing millions of records from various organizations.

To protect Elasticsearch, the article outlines a set of security strategies across network, OS, server, and authentication layers.

Security Strategies

Network Layer

Since most attacks come from external networks, a proper network firewall and removal of unnecessary public IPs are essential.

OS Layer

Run Elasticsearch as a non‑root user and set appropriate permissions on data directories.

Server Layer

Change the default ports (9200 for HTTP, 9300 for transport) to obscure the service and reduce targeted attacks.

User and Permission Authentication

Elasticsearch lacks built-in authentication; the free open‑source plugin Search Guard provides TLS encryption, role‑based access control, and integration with Logstash and Kibana.

Supports SSL/TLS for both transport and REST layers, configurable independently.

Provides a full “user‑role‑permission” model, with free version controlling indices/types and host level.

Advanced features (document‑level security, field‑level security, audit logging, LDAP/Kerberos) require the paid Enterprise license.

Permissions can be updated dynamically via files stored in the searchguard index and applied with the sgadmin tool without restarting.

Since Elasticsearch 5.x, Search Guard and its SSL component are bundled, simplifying installation.

These measures, though simple, are often overlooked and can prevent future maintenance pitfalls.

Happy coding!