User Activity Monitoring and Access Logging Tool

User activity monitoring is the process of actively monitoring and tracking the behavior of employees across IT resources owned by your company, such as devices and networks. This is often achieved via user activity monitoring software, which makes it easier to log user activity. Many businesses rely on employee activity tracking to identify and protect against security insider threats that originate from within the organization, whether those threats are intentionally malicious or not. 

Depending on the size, needs, and objectives of an organization, the methods of monitoring user activity may vary. There are many advantages to using activity monitoring software to create and analyze user activity logs. While no system is absolutely foolproof or invulnerable, a robust monitoring system can help administrators more easily identify suspicious behavior, reduce information security risks across the network, and help to lessen the damage or cost should a data breach occur. User activity tracking makes use of proactive surveillance to identify behavior that could signal potential exploitations of access privileges or policies related to sensitive data protection across the company’s information infrastructure.

A user activity monitor (UAM) is an efficient way to monitor a wide variety of user activities at once, from system and data functions to application and network actions. To effectively monitor user activity: 

• Consider your IT domain. How do you set permissions? How do users log in to access data? Do you use Active Directory, SharePoint, NTFS permissions, or other similar systems? 
• Decide what tracking method is most appropriate for your network. User activity can be monitored and managed in a number of ways, including recordings of user sessions, collection and analysis of user activity logs, keystroke logging, screenshot captures, and other methods. 
• Decide what qualifies as relevant user activity. Among other things, this can include logging users’ activity as they browse the web and or when they access sensitive or protected data and files. Specific company policy will determine what does and does not constitute appropriate and inappropriate user behavior, and it will be the responsibility of IT administrators to adjust reports generated by the user activity monitoring software, and what types of activity those reports track.
• Configure user log activity filters to show the information you need. Monitoring of any sort will automatically generate large amounts of data, and such software should allow for filtering of the logs and data in order to provide you the insights needed to maintain security.
• Automate the process with user activity monitoring software by building in your preferences, as determined through the above steps. This will make it easier to automatically run the reports you need, receive alerts on suspicious user activity, and even implement responses when issues occur.

The main goal of user activity monitoring is improving security, which means ensuring that sensitive information is protected and only accessible by authorized stakeholders. Luckily, the right software can help you gain visibility into user activity across your network, such as user actions, changes, and access patterns.

Effective user activity monitoring software can allow IT administrators to swiftly detect and address suspicious user activity to prevent or mitigate the potential damage caused by users sending protected or unauthorized data to public clouds or using resources for personal or risky activities that could leave the company open to attack. Thanks to this enhanced visibility, you can take action quickly to prevent data breaches and more, which ultimately leads to reduced downtime.

• Improve Compliance

User activity tracking software can give you insights into who is accessing sensitive information, policy violations, and unusual user behaviors. As a result, you’ll be able to take action quickly when things are amiss, helping you meet various compliance regulations pertaining to security and data privacy. Additionally, an employee activity monitor can keep a record of all user activities, giving you an audit trail.

• Simplify Troubleshooting

Monitoring user activity can also help when it comes to troubleshooting by providing valuable insights into the sequence of events leading up to system issues or errors. UAM software can also allow you to drill down into your users’ actions when conducting root cause analysis, enabling you to pinpoint the source of issues faster. Such software can also help you keep an eye on which users are making firewall configuration changes, as well as what changes are made, so you can quickly detect and resolve configuration errors.

• Improve Analysis

Analysis is an essential part to proper security monitoring, and filtering through the data collected by monitoring user behavior is also important. Some of these events can include: potential cybersecurity risks, unusual network traffic, user account changes, and authentication failures. Real-time risk identification is helpful when analyzed against historical logs of user activity. Monitoring user behavior can assist in diagnosing risky, suspicious, or inappropriate actions that could have serious repercussions for the company, such as phishing attacks or data breaches.

• Boost Operating Efficiency

User access and activity monitoring will also promote accountability among your network’s users, encouraging them to adhere to established policies and behave responsibly in general. This can reduce the risk of security breaches, data misuse, and downtime, while also giving you the user behavior and network activity insights you need to make informed network security decisions.

There are usually three primary components to user activity monitoring software:

1. Visual forensics - Visual forensics is the process of making visual summaries of inappropriate or suspicious user activity. The software tools log user activity, and—once a user session has finished—pairs a visual record with a textual record of the actions the user performed. A SIEM logging tool like Security Event Manager is built to capture data at a system level. The textual and visual logs in SEM help create a historical record that is easily searchable for exact user actions in the event of a security incident that requires investigation. The visual forensics element can be used to prove precise and specific user actions, as well as preceding actions leading to the ones under investigation. These records can also be provided to regulatory authorities for auditing purposes, or to law enforcement should there be need for criminal prosecution. 
2. User behavior analytics - User behavior analytics assess patterns of user behavior by flagging suspicious patterns and comparing anomalies against a database of known threats, so that security professionals know the exact moment a user performs a predetermined high-risk action.
3. User activity alerting - User activity alerting is often automated based on software analytics that identify potential user activity issues. This alerting can send IT administrators notifications regarding potentially hazardous activity. Repeated alerts can be recorded and associated with specific user profiles, helping to identify the sort of risk each user represents. Some user activity monitoring software alert triggers can be customized to match what administrators determine are the priority behaviors that constitute risk, whether that is opening certain applications, visiting specific websites, or executing certain commands.

SolarWinds Security Event Manager is a powerful SIEM tool designed to give administrators system-wide data and user activity monitoring, allowing for more efficient responses to threat detection. The powerful tools in SEM can enable you to identify and respond to security threats in real time, helping mitigate potential harm. Security Event Manager allows you to create and customize automated responses that will automatically intervene should users trigger alerts by performing high-risk actions. These auto-responses can be used to block IP addresses or USB devices, modify a user’s privileges, kill applications, and more. Quickly responding to security incidents is integral to maintaining best practices, and swift responses could potentially save your organization from fines, penalties, or legal action. 

Other features of Security Event Manager include log management, threat detection, log normalization and correlation, forwarding, reporting, file integrity monitoring, USB detection, threat prevention, threat intelligence, and an active response solution—all within one virtual appliance built to be easy to deploy, manage, and use.

User activity monitoring isn’t illegal. In fact, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe explicitly says that monitoring user activities is legal when trying to prevent fraud or even creating targeted marketing campaigns.

However, there are other legislations, policies, and regulations regarding data protection and privacy that restrict how companies can collect, store, and use data. While Europe has the GDPR, the United States has the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and Stored Wire Electronic Communications Act as well as state-level legislation. Everything from how you encrypt the collected data to how long you retain it matters. Using user activity tracking software and monitoring user activity can quickly become a legal minefield for companies if they fail to comply with these regulations, so it’s best to consult with data protection or labor law experts if you’re unsure.

Either way, privacy is a delicate issue — and user activity monitoring pulls it into focus. While using UAM software may stress out some employees, causing them to believe you don’t trust them, you can smooth things over by explaining why you’re using an employee activity tracker. Be transparent about the purpose of the monitoring, emphasizing its role in maintaining security, ensuring compliance with company policies, and protecting sensitive information.

Related Features:

• User Account Management
• User Provisioning Software
• Network User Tracking
• User Device Tracker
• Information Security Risk Management
• Cybersecurity Risk Management
• Compliance Risk Management
• Threat Management
• Threat Prevention
• APT Security Software (Advanced Persistent Threat Defense)

Related Tools:

• SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted & Security Observability
• Access Rights Manager