To ensure your Active Directory environment is safe, one of the best methods is to use Active Directory monitoring service. Real-time visibility into network activity to identify suspicious activity and reduce risk. In the article below, we will look at the best practices for monitoring Active Directory for user activity and threats. It describes what must be included and how it can affect your network.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
The Importance of Active Directory Monitoring
Active Directory keeps safe important details regarding users and computers. The component oversees all users’ and devices’ authentication, authorization, and configuration within the organization. When a hacker gets into the AD without permission, then they can change the details of a user, access useful files and even hack critical systems. This makes AD a high-value target for malicious actors.
Monitoring AD closely is critical for several reasons:
- You can catch security-related issues before they spread if you monitor your system closely.
- Monitoring user activity helps identify strange behavior which can indicate a hacked account or an insider.
- Many industries require auditing user activities for compliance purposes (13 words). Active Directory monitoring allows you to easily present the necessary logs and reports.
- AD is often where organizations keep important information such as access permissions, passwords, and other sensitive data. Making sure this data is never tampered with is important for network security.
Key Elements of an Active Directory Monitoring Service
A well-designed Active Directory monitoring service provides insight into a variety of key activities, from user logins to permission changes. To monitor Active Directory for user activity and security threats, the following components should be monitored and assessed.
1. User Login and Logout Events.
Monitoring the log in, log out of users is one of the most basic but essential components of Active Directory Monitoring. The system records a user when they log in to or out of the system. It also notes the precise time, the device used and the area.
It is equally important to monitor the failed login attempts. It is fine if there are a couple of failed attempts. However, if there are several, then someone is trying to get unauthorized access automatically. That’s an indicator of a brute force attack. Real-time alerts help a security teams identify these risks quickly which helps with action.
2. Changes to User Permissions
Changes made to user permissions must especially be monitored if any privilege is elevated or there is access to sensitive resources. This indicates adding and/or removing users from specific group types. An example is Domain Admins or Enterprise Admins. Maliciously or accidentally making any of these changes can cause a serious security breach.
You can save time and money with Active Directory auditing. You can track attributes, and see what changes were made to your permissions and group memberships. You will know who did the change, when they did the change and what the change was. To monitor unauthorized alterations, alerts can be configured with an Active Directory monitoring tool for these changes.
3. Group Policy Modifications
Group Policies refer to a collection of rules that determine how specific devices and users may interact with the system. Changes to Group Policy Objects (GPOs) have severe security impacts. A hacker can change a policy to disable auditing, or create a backdoor account for themselves.
Therefore, continuous monitoring of GPO changes is crucial. Any change that is done at the policy level to user access, system settings and security configuration should trigger alerts.
4. Account Lockouts
When a person locks an account following too many incorrect login attempts, it is vital to investigate if the reason is a person’s mistake or if someone is trying to access theirs by guessing the password. If you see too many lockouts, somebody might be trying a brute force attack. Or it could mean a compromise attempt.
A service for monitoring Active Directory can track these lockouts and connect them to other questionable activity. Moreover, it may highlight the origin of the attempts, offering a rapid assessment of the likely extent of the breach.
5. Changes to Organizational Units (OUs)
OUs are containers in the Active Directory that organize users and resources. Moving users between OUs or changing settings on a whole unit is a security risk. Changes to these containers are not good. If changes are not authorized, things could set off a chain of events that may give user access to avoid security and take sensitive data.
Monitoring changes in OUs helps to ensure the changes made are valid and from authorized personnel only.
Best Practices for Monitoring Active Directory
Because of that, we discussed the need for Active Directory monitoring service. However, we also need to look at some best practices to ensure you monitor effectively. Here are some key strategies for enhancing AD security.
1. Enable Detailed Auditing
Active Directory can automatically show who has changed user accounts and any groups to which those users belong. Most often, however, auditing is not enabled or configured to capture minimal information. To ensure every action is thoroughly monitored, allow auditing on detail level:
- Account logons
- Account lockouts
- Changes to group memberships
- Modifications to GPOs.
- User and group creation/deletion.
2. Utilize Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Tools
SIEM tools assemble logs from many sources (like Active Directory) and provide you with a complete picture of your organization. Programs capable of flagging anomalies in AD events and other logs can also perform more sophisticated analyses that might flag possible security incidents.
By incorporating your Active Directory monitoring service with SIEM, we provide a larger context for detecting and responding to a security incident. A system that offers dashboard and real-time alerts for security teams to quickly maximize damage mitigation.
3. Monitor for Insider Threats
It’s easy to forget that internal threats can be just as devastating as external threats. Employees, contractors, or trusted others are often people who are on the inside and have access to Active Directory. They can hurt your organization by accident or on purpose because they have access.
We need to watch the behaviour of users, especially employees with a higher level of access.
Look for signs of unusual activity, such as:
- Getting into files or resources that don’t belong to the user’s job
- Logging in at unusual times.
- Downloading or deleting large volumes of sensitive data.
- A monitoring service for Active Directory can quickly identify the activities and takes proactive measures towards insider threats.
4. Review and Maintain Access Control
Check users’ access levels regularly to ensure that everyone has just the access necessary to do his or her job. With time, the entitlements of the employees may grow unnecessarily, posing risks. You can limit exposure to attacks by reviewing access periodically and inactivating accounts no longer in use.
By using an Active Directory monitoring service to automate access reviews, they will be completed on a regular basis.
5. Implement Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
It is important to check traffic for suspicious and malicious actions and to strengthen access control with another layer of security. Inhibits Unauthorized Access. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) puts another hurdle in front of unauthorized access making it less likely to gain entry successfully.
When users are required to do more things to determine who they are-for example scan a fingerprint, or agree on a mobile device or using a smart card attacker will not be able to access the system even if they manage to obtain a user’s password.
6. Conduct Regular Security Audits
It is a good security practice to periodically audit Active Directory and its devices. The security audits will review permissions, group access, user access and so on. It can identify possible weaknesses and the potential thing that needs more monitoring.
Regular audits ensure compliance with regulations of the industry by firms. For example, laws like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) ensure organizations are tightly controlled about who can see sensitive data.
Conclusion
Active Directory is essential for managing and securing networks within many organizations. Yet this target has been achieved by attackers for the greater amounts and because it is critical for user data. Active directory tracking will help your organization in staying safe from several security threats that might come from inside your organization. Not just that, but tracking active directory will also effectively prevent any unauthorized access to your sensitive and valuable data. As an outcome of which, it avoids any compliance violation as well.
By turning on the detailed auditing feature, integrating with SIEM tools, picking an insider monitoring tool, and regularly reviewing the access control policy, you can greatly improve your security posture. To respond to constant changes and mitigation of the security policy in the IT environment, constant vigilance is necessary.
