ClickHouse Security Best Practices in Spring Boot Applications

December 19, 2025

Securing ClickHouse is critical when building Spring Boot applications. A few simple steps can harden your database and protect sensitive data.

1. Use Strong Authentication

Configure ClickHouse with proper users and passwords instead of relying on the default user:

<users>
  <user name="app_user">
    <password>StrongPassword123</password>
    <networks>
      <ip>::/0</ip>
    </networks>
    <profile>default</profile>
    <quota>default</quota>
  </user>
</users>

Update your Spring Boot application.properties:

spring.datasource.username=app_user
spring.datasource.password=StrongPassword123

2. Enable SSL/TLS Connections

Force encrypted connections between Spring Boot and ClickHouse:

spring.datasource.url=jdbc:clickhouse://localhost:8443/default?ssl=true

This protects data in transit.

3. Apply Role-Based Access Control

Assign only the required permissions:

CREATE ROLE readonly;
GRANT SELECT ON mydb.* TO readonly;
GRANT readonly TO app_user;

This enforces the principle of least privilege.

4. Protect Sensitive Data

Use parameterized queries to prevent SQL injection.
Encrypt sensitive columns at the application level if needed.

5. Monitor Logs and Queries

Enable query logging to track suspicious activity and use Spring Boot’s monitoring tools to integrate with external dashboards.

6. Keep ClickHouse Updated

Always use the latest stable version of ClickHouse to ensure you have recent security patches and fixes.

Ads go here

#ads