Auditing

Auditing enables you to monitor changes in Enterprise Console configuration and other user or system actions. You can use this information for regulatory compliance and troubleshooting or, in the case of malicious activity, during a forensic analysis.

By default, auditing is disabled. After you enable auditing, an audit entry is written to the auditing database whenever certain configuration settings are changed or certain actions are performed.

Note: If you use role-based administration, you must have the Auditing right to enable or disable auditing. For more information, see Managing roles and sub-estates.

The audit entry includes the following information:

Both successful and failed attempts at actions are audited, so the audit entries can show who performed actions on the system and who started actions that did not complete successfully.

Audited actions include:

Category Actions
Computer actions Acknowledge/resolve alerts and errors, protect a computer, update a computer, delete a computer, perform a full system scan on a computer
Computer group management Create a group, delete a group, move a group, rename a group, assign a computer to a group
Policy management Create a policy, rename a policy, duplicate a policy, edit a policy, assign a policy to a computer, reset a policy to factory defaults, delete a policy
Role management Create a role, delete a role, rename a role, duplicate a role, add a user to a role, remove a user from a role, add a right to a role, remove a right from a role
Update manager management Update an update manager, make an update manager comply with configuration, acknowledge alerts, delete an update manager, configure an update manager, add a new software subscription, delete a software subscription, rename a software subscription, edit a software subscription, duplicate a software subscription
System events Enable auditing, disable auditing

You can use third-party programs, such as Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access, Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services, or Crystal Reports, to access and analyze data stored in the auditing database. For information about how to view audit entries, see the Sophos Enterprise Console auditing user guide.