Understanding Microsoft Windows Security Auditing

Microsoft Windows security auditing can keep you protected, but what exactly is this security measure?

Ensuring that your organization stays protected from cyber-attacks and malicious hacking should always be a top priority. Some software already comes with built-in security tools, which you can use to help maintain the integrity of your systems. Microsoft Windows comes with a security auditing feature that can help you potentially identify attacks before they occur.

What is Microsoft Windows Security Auditing?

Windows security auditing is one of the most powerful security tools available to Windows computers. This Windows feature monitors user activity and performs forensic analysis, incident investigation, and general troubleshooting on a Windows computer.

Generally, an audit policy comes as two types: basic and advanced. Audit policies allow administrators to review access to things like files, folders, and registry keys. You’ll want to select which security events your organization needs to monitor when installing the program.

A person may choose to audit:

• Account logon events
• Invalid logon attempts
• Account local policies
• Account management
• Directory service access
• Object access
• Privilege use
• Process tracking
• System events

You can then view your Windows security log to see if anything was discovered.

What is the point of a Microsoft Windows Security Audit?

The intention of the Microsoft security audit is to provide an organization with the systematic monitoring of company information on Windows computers. Both the security of the computer and the information itself are secured by this audit, which identifies any potential breaches of data. By auditing a user’s logon event and activity, for example, an audit can detect unusual traffic or activity that may signal a cyberattack is imminent. This can allow your organization to get ahead of it and stop it before it occurs.

How to set up a Microsoft Security Audit

As an organization, setting up the Windows Security Audit will require using the advanced security audit policy as your organization has multiple computers:
1. Open the Windows Control Panel (in the active directory environment)
2. Select administrative tools
3. Click run local security and open local policies branch
4.Select audit policy and choose which events you wish to audit

While a Microsoft Windows Security Audit can be extremely effective, ensure your organization stays totally protected by investing in strong firewall support, dual-factor authentication, adjusting security settings and permissions, keeping credentials secure, and training employees on cybersecurity.

Keep your organization protected today

Staying protected against cybersecurity attacks can seem daunting, especially if your organization has multiple networks and employees. Data breaches or general malicious cyber hacking can cost any organization serious time and money. Take the time to ensure your organization has as many safeguards in place as possible, but also take the time to learn each of those safeguards, such as Microsoft Windows Security Audit tools, and what they protect. If your business is in Columbus, Cleveland, or Akron, and you’re ready to learn how to build a custom solution to protect your data, get in touch with us here at Warwick today.