Privileged Session Recording with Open Policy Agent: Real-Time, Policy-Driven Security

The root account just went live. Every command, every keystroke must be tracked. You need eyes on the session, in real time, with tamper-proof logs that can survive an audit. This is where Open Policy Agent (OPA) meets privileged session recording.

Privileged accounts have direct access to the core of your systems—databases, APIs, infrastructure control planes. They can change configurations, bypass automated safeguards, and trigger events that no rollback can fix. Traditional monitoring tells you after something happens. Privileged session recording gives you the full transcript as it happens.

OPA is the policy engine that makes this control intelligent. Instead of hardcoding who can record a session or when, you write policies in Rego that define the rules exactly: which accounts trigger session recording, how recordings are stored, and what happens when policy violations occur. OPA evaluates every request in milliseconds, so the decision to start, stop, or block a session is instant.

Integrating OPA with privileged session recording means you enforce rules without manual checks. You can define policy to record all root activity on production clusters, only during certain hours, or only if change tickets match a reference. You can require session recording for SSH, Kubernetes exec commands, or database logins. Every action is captured and bound to cryptographic integrity checks to prevent tampering.

This approach scales. OPA policies can run at the gateway, in CI/CD pipelines, or alongside your access broker. Whether you manage hundreds or thousands of privileged sessions per day, the same Rego policies keep enforcement consistent. With fine-grained control, you can reduce noise, capture only high-risk sessions, and meet compliance requirements like SOC 2, ISO 27001, or PCI DSS.

Privileged session recording with OPA is not just audit-friendly—it’s breach-resistant. A recorded session, tied to a verified policy decision, gives you hard facts when something goes wrong. No guesswork, no missing context.

See how this works in minutes at hoop.dev. Connect your privileged access workflows, write your first OPA policy, and watch the recording trigger exactly when your rules say it should.