IT departments may opt for auditing solutions for a number of reasons; whether it be to increase security, streamline systems management or meet increasingly stringent compliance demands. Whatever the driver may be, once you’ve decided to deploy a third-party solution, you need to ensure you have considered these five points to ensure that you’ve made the correct choice.
1.Make sure the solution meets your requirements
The chosen auditing solution needs to be able to meet all your auditing requirements. Some of the questions you need to be asking are whether the auditing solution answers what you need it to answer, how much it will cost to implement and whether there are sufficient control measures in place. Before you choose which solution is right for you, you need to determine what your requirements are. Are you in need of comprehensive HIPAA compliance reports? Do you want to know who is modifying, copying or deleting your critical files and folders? Do you wish to know who has permission to what and be alerted whenever permissions change? Ask yourself these types of questions first and then you will be in a better place to deploy the correct solution.
2.System architecture and scalability
Often IT administrators look to deploy and implement the most advanced auditing solutions possible without taking into account what training is required for end users. The solution should fit into your existing system architecture, but at the same time must be able to scale up and meet future audit requirements as your organization grows.
3.Managing the application and allocating storage
A system needs to be setup to install and work with auditing solution. The designated user must have the requisite system rights and permissions to run the application, as you will have to audit all important network components. A designated user will have to be chosen to whom service rights, local system rights, and SQL Server rights will be assigned.
4.Functional processes
Determine how the audit solution will be monitored and managed. Given the wide range of systems management, security and compliance challenges that you may be facing, the in-house team must be able to answer all any related question in the least amount of time possible. Ensure that the solution you choose can be optimized to answer such questions, whether this be through pre-set reports or allowing you to build your own specific reports.
5.Security
Ascertain and address any system exposures that could lead to security problems before deploying the solution. Do a risk analysis of potential vulnerabilities, such as what would happen if the event logs database is tampered with, or if the solution is accessed by an unauthorized person. Decide how to mitigate these risks before they arise.
Conclusion
The list is by no means exhaustive but will certainly help you get closer to actually deploying a third-party auditing solution. If you address all these points before deployment, you should be able to successfully meet all your auditing needs. Be sure to check out our auditing solution to see if it meets your requirements. LepideAuditor Suite provides in-depth and pro-active auditing of Active Directory, Group Policy, Exchange Server, File Server, SQL Server and SharePoint Server.
