Active Directory (AD) Auditing

with Access Rights Manager

Help with security and demonstrate compliance with AD auditing assistance software

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Improve safety, visibility and reaction speed

Track AD changes

Improved AD Insight

Track Users

Automate Audit Analysis

Validate Compliance

Actively Track any Changes in Real Time with Active Directory Auditing Assistance

SolarWinds ARM - Active Directory auditing tool

Monitoring Active Directory (AD) servers can be especially challenging and time-consuming in large organizations with many users, computers, and shared resources. While PowerShell can help monitor user and group permissions from the AD server, large organizations need special tools for the purpose. SolarWinds Access Rights Manager (ARM) is designed to help you actively monitor and track any changes made to Active Directory and group policies. With SolarWinds ARM, administrators can improve their security posture with visibility into AD changes and a record of who made those changes and when. This is crucial for thwarting insider threats.

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Improved Insight into the AD Environment

Unlike other AD auditing and reporting tools, SolarWinds ARM makes it simple to visualize your AD environment. The AD audit assistance software can help you monitor group memberships and access rights to file servers. With a snapshot view of current user access to services and file servers, you can quickly stop potential insider threats.

SolarWinds ARM’s risk assessment dashboard helps you monitor low, medium, and high-severity risks. The dashboard can provide information about insecure configurations, such as never-expiring passwords, direct access, changed access rights, and more. This improved visibility can be crucial in post-breach investigations and reporting.

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Keep Track of Logged-out and Deactivated Users

AD account provisioning and deprovisioning with ARM

SolarWinds ARM reduces IT workloads by automating AD user account provisioning and deprovisioning. This saves you from the hassle of logging onto the AD server and creating users manually using native tools. You also get greater control and flexibility than other Active Directory permissions audit tools. SolarWinds ARM’s Active Directory auditing tool provides role-specific templates to create, modify, or delete user accounts. It can automatically control permissions for accessing or changing any data, files, and folders. These templates expedite account provisioning by letting you set up new user accounts within a few clicks.

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Automate Audit Analysis for Risk Assessment

The easy-to-use Active Directory auditing tool built into ARM provides deeper visibility across AD user accounts, access levels, and activities. ARM is built to help you proactively identify security gaps in your Active Directory environment and remediate issues quickly to avoid further escalation. ARM provides insights about possible security threats—such as user accounts with insecure configurations or repeated unauthorized access attempts—before attackers can exploit them. ARM also provides a complete audit trail to help you easily and quickly detect malicious activity.

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Validate Compliance with Out-of-the-Box Reports

Protect Against Data Loss and Cybersecurity Breaches by Monitoring Active Directory Users

During an investigation, auditors often require clear and concise reports; organizations must be prepared to quickly provide data related to user account management. Such Active Directory reporting can be cumbersome without an integrated compliance reporting tool. ARM includes out-of-the-box and audit-ready reports to support HIPAA, GDPR, PCI DSS, and other industry-specific regulatory standards. Access Rights Manager provides a unified view of user accounts and permissions to Active Directory resources and can help simplify and expedite compliance management and demonstration.

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Get More on Active Directory Auditing

Do you find yourself asking…

What is Active Directory Auditing?
How to do an audit of Active Directory?
What should Active Directory audits report on?
Why is an Active Directory audit important?
What are the best practices of Active Directory Auditing?
How does the AD audit tool work in SolarWinds Access Rights Manager?
Related Features and Tools

Active Directory auditing tools help you monitor, analyze, and report on your Active Directory permissions to help ensure they are configured according to internal security policies and industry regulations to better prevent a security breach or data loss.

An Active Directory auditing tool like SolarWinds Access Rights Manager can help you:

Increase administrative control over user permissions with a single interface that helps admins gain deep insights into activities across the network.
Modify permissions with automated audits and role-specific templates that help you create, modify, and delete accounts as needed.
Simplify credential management so you can set and change passwords quickly and easily.
Simplify the process of demonstrating regulatory compliance by automatically generating management and compliance reports.
Improve both external and internal security by helping you detect unauthorized user access and attempted credential theft.Reduce costs by consolidating multiple disparate tools into a single Active Directory management tool.

Active Directory auditing tools help you monitor, analyze, and report on your Active Directory permissions to help ensure they are configured according to internal security policies and industry regulations to better prevent a security breach or data loss.
An Active Directory auditing tool like SolarWinds Access Rights Manager can help you:
Increase administrative control over user permissions with a single interface that helps admins gain deep insights into activities across the network.
Modify permissions with automated audits and role-specific templates that help you create, modify, and delete accounts as needed.
Simplify credential management so you can set and change passwords quickly and easily.
Simplify the process of demonstrating regulatory compliance by automatically generating management and compliance reports.
Improve both external and internal security by helping you detect unauthorized user access and attempted credential theft.Reduce costs by consolidating multiple disparate tools into a single Active Directory management tool.
The Active Directory audit process can ensure that only authorized personnel have access to critical data on your network. It can also help you prevent inactive users from having access, which could inadvertently allow bad actors to access the network.
There are four key steps in a manual AD security audit checklist:
Map Your Environment: First, scan and map your entire AD environment to determine the details of existing accounts and permissions. Then, you can begin triage.
Focus on What Matters: Without an Active Directory permissions audit tool, monitoring and keeping track of all the Active Directory changes is practically impossible. Instead, you should prioritize the areas that could pose the most danger. Organizations often focus on Privileged AD Access, Privileged User Access, and Large Group Remediation.
Review Memberships and Remediate Problems: Now, you can begin reviewing group memberships and remediating problematic Active Directory folder permissions and conditions you uncovered. Review members to ensure that only the appropriate individuals and groups can access sensitive data. Following the principle of least privilege helps ensure security.
Create a Continuous Cycle: The AD auditing process should occur regularly, which is why it’s important to make this process repeatable. After you have reviewed your top priorities, repeat the third step with the next highest priority, and so on.The AD auditing process can be long and complex, especially without the right tools, but it is critical to maintaining the security of sensitive data. By using an Active Directory auditing tool, you can better streamline this process and more easily incorporate it as part of your regular security efforts.
Active Directory audits should report on the following:
User access rights: Documenting which users have access to specific resources.
Granting, modification, or elevation of privileges: Monitoring changes in user privileges.
Creation, modification, and deletion of user accounts: Tracking account management activities.
Logon and logoff events: Recording user login and logout activities.
Inactive accounts: Identifying unused accounts that could pose security risks.
Default Active Directory settings: Reporting changes to default configurations.
Replicated Active Directory data: Checking for inconsistencies in replicated data.
Password changes: Monitoring updates to user passwords.
Activities of administrators and other privileged users: Tracking actions by high-privilege accounts.
Object access attempts: Logging attempts to access sensitive or critical objects.
To conduct a thorough Active Directory audit, it's important to follow key best practices that improve security and simplify management. Start by using the Advanced Audit Policy configuration instead of the basic setup to enable more detailed logging.
Configure audit policies: Implement these on all servers and workstations.
Set event log size and retention: Adjust settings to ensure logs are stored adequately and are not overwritten prematurely.
Centralize event logs: Store all logs in one location for easier management and review.
Pre-configure password and lockout policies: Establish these settings to enforce strong security measures from the start.Regular and thorough audits using a specialized Active Directory audit tool are also critical. These tools provide enhanced visibility, automate account management tasks, and often come with pre-built templates to facilitate the quick creation, modification, and deletion of accounts. Solutions like SolarWinds® Access Rights Manager can simplify these processes for a more secure and efficient AD environment.
Other SolarWinds Tools to help administer and monitor Active Directory:
SolarWinds Security Event Manager
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
Dameware Remote Support
Other ARM features:
OneDrive Permissions Monitoring
SharePoint Permissions Management
SharePoint Audit Tool
Simplify NTFS Permissions Management
Exchange Auditing Software
Exchange Management Tool
File Server Auditing

Expedite Audits and Demonstrate Compliance with Active Directory Auditing Software

Access Rights Manager

Monitor and audit Active Directory, Exchange, SharePoint, and file server permissions
Quickly manage and provision user access
Generate custom management and AD audit reports

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Fully functional for 30 days

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