Keycloak session recording for compliance

The admin console lit up with activity logs you couldn’t fully trust. Sessions were starting, ending, and mutating. You needed proof—immutable, replayable proof—for compliance. Keycloak alone wasn’t enough.

Keycloak session recording for compliance is more than storing a timestamp. It means capturing every login, token refresh, and role change in a way that can be audited, reconstructed, and verified without gaps. For regulated industries, this isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the difference between passing an audit and facing fines.

Keycloak tracks session metadata in its database, but by default it won’t keep full, tamper-resistant records of session activity. That’s where proper session recording comes in. By integrating a recording layer, you can:

• Log every authentication event with full context.
• Store linked session states for forensic analysis.
• Archive token lifecycle data—issue, refresh, and revoke.
• Maintain immutable evidence for compliance reviews.

To implement Keycloak session recording, you can hook into its SPI (Service Provider Interfaces) to capture events in real time. Event listeners can send structured JSON to a secure store, such as an append-only log or blockchain-backed ledger. Use external storage to avoid contamination by internal DB writes. Encrypt logs at rest. Sign each record so it can be verified independently.

For compliance frameworks like PCI DSS, HIPAA, or ISO 27001, this approach lets you prove every session’s origin, actions, and termination. Auditors can replay the exact sequence of events without depending on application-level claims. It keeps your identity and access management honest.

Don’t leave blind spots in your session history. Turn Keycloak into a source of truth you can defend. See hoop.dev bring this to life—stream, store, and replay Keycloak sessions for compliance in minutes.