What Is bam.nr-data.net?
What Is bam.nr-data.net?
A few weeks ago as we were analyzing the loading of our client website, we noticed that it was connecting to a domain called “bam.nr-data.net”. We didn't know what this meant, and feared that the website was infected with malware. Off the bat, we figured that the website was connecting with this domain for malicious reasons.
Upon further research, you can also find this domain in waterfall charts, and the headers of web pages.
What Is bam.nr-data.net?
After doing some research, we were able to identify what bam.nr-data.net is. The good news is that you shouldn't be worried.
The Bam.nr-data.net Is part of the New Relic monitoring system. From the URL, you can figure out why your website is connecting to it.
BAM= Browser application monitoring (agent)
NR= New Relic
Data is transmitted from your website to New Relic via this domain.
What’s New Relic?
New Relic Is a very powerful monitoring platform for your server and website. It allows you to easily diagnose performance issues by collecting diverse data from your website loading.
New Relic comes with several enterprise level hosts such as Cloudways and Pantheon.
While the depth of the data depends on the New Relic Plan that you are using, this tool can Monitor everything from page speed loading times, to user geography, to how long the visitor actually spends on your page.
For example, all of our websites are hosted on Cloudways which includes complimentary New Relic monitoring.
Why Is It Transmitting Data to bam.nr-data.net?
This is part of the standard process of collecting the data from your website and offloading it to the New Relic servers.
The process of gathering and transmitting the data works like this. To gather information, the New Relic Browser interface Communicates with JavaScript elements that are injected into your web page. Typically these can be found in the head, and if you go to Chrome Dev tools You may be able to identify the New Relic script in the <head> of the page.
Once the page loads, New Relic downloads yet another script that processes the data and sends it back to new relic via the bam.nr-data.net domain. This is why you may see a notice that says “connecting to bam.nr-data.net” when loading your page. It is simply a part of the standard data collection process for this tool.
If you would like to learn more about this domain and how it actually works, take a look at this article here: https://discuss.newrelic.com/t/understanding-bam-nr-data-net-data-transmission-its-endpoints/58535
Reports that bam.nr-data.net is malicious
You may have seen reports online (or experienced it yourself) stating that bam.nr-data.net is malicious.
You may be asking yourself, “Is bam.nr-data.net malware?” -- and, if you think back to the beginning of this article, that's exactly the question that we had.
For example, this is happened in multiple cases with our Malwarebytes virus monitoring system, as well as built-in browser protection systems.
The short answer is that "no it is not malware".
The long answer is that it may be identified as malware because it collects information from browser visitors. However, this information cannot be personally identifiable, and as long as you disclose this in your website policies, you're good to go.
Every once in awhile the bam.nr-data.net domain gets blacklisted on some security service. Typically, all you need to do is report this to the New rRlic team, and they will work with the company that has blacklisted their domain to get it off that list.
For further reading on why this domain may be falsely identified as malware, read this article here: https://discuss.newrelic.com/t/why-is-bam-nr-data-net-blacklisted-as-a-threat/85802/3
Conclusion
We hope that this article helped you understand what the bam.nr-data.net domain is, and what it's doing on your website. Sometimes, this software is installed automatically when purchasing web hosting, so you may not even be aware that you can access the advanced features that New Relic has to offer. the good news is that no, this domain is not malware and it's actually helping you make your website better through data.
As always, if you have any questions or comments leave them in the section below.
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James LePage
Thanks for the explanation. My own server runs New Relic (the basic, free account) and I was getting tired of seeing all pages waiting so long for a reply from New Relic's servers — it seems odd that a tool measuring performance is, by itself, worsening that performance, but, alas, that's the sad truth of things.
But a few websites have been mislabeling bam.nr-data.net as 'malware', and I was worried if someone didn't build some malware around New Relic's software...
Absolutely interfers with performance of Ancestry.com
Hi, is the Custom Breakpoints for Elementor stable on Elementor 3.0.8 ?
As far as I'm concerned it's malware because it stops me from loading the electronic health records website I use so I can't complete medical documentation from home. It's probably an error of some sort because I have a relatively slow internet connection but I'm a health care worker, not a web developer, and I can't figure out how to adjust the load time or whatever else is causing the website to permanently stall loading data on my computer. I didn't ask for bam.nr-data.net to operate on my computer and I have know idea why it is. Operating in stealth makes it malware and hindering me from completing my medical documentation and causing extra aggravation after a long day makes it malicious :{.
Nice to know, however I don't have a website, I am only a user. .....Why do I see dat going to New Relic.?