Windows registry audit policy

The first step is to create a GPO and link it to the organizational unit OU whose machines you wish to monitor for changes to the PowerShell keys in the registry.

There you activate the Audit Registry setting, where you see two options: Success and Failure. Deciding whether you want to record failed, successful, or both accesses depends on the type and importance of the resource. However, you should find a balance between the relevance of the recorded events and the amount of data generated. In our example, we limit ourselves only to Success to find out when the value of a key actually changed.

Executing this command on the target computers activates the group policy:. To do this, navigate in regedit. In the subsequent dialog, click on Advanced and open the Auditing tab in the next dialog. Here you add a new entry. First, choose a security principle for tracking, such as Everyone. In the next step, define which activities to record. For our purpose, we select Query Value , Set Value , and Delete to record that a value for this key has changed.

Select the type of accesses to record in the audit log. Again, you should keep in mind that monitoring full access may generate too much data, especially if you configure the SACL further up in the registry tree.

There you open the context menu of the container or right-click in the right panel. Then execute the Add Key command. In the following dialog, navigate through the registry until you reach the desired key. If this key does not exist on the local machine, you may also type the path into the input field. After selecting a key, the same security dialog opens as described above for regedit.

Therefore, the following procedure is the same as for configuring the SACL in the registry editor. Finally, you should monitor the entries in the event log to discover suspicious activities. Find these in the Security protocol with the IDs , , , and As we are only interested in changes in this specific case, the Event IDs and are sufficient.

ID represents deletion. Output audit logs for registration via PowerShell. Subscribe to 4sysops newsletter! As a filter, select Security under Event logs , Microsoft Windows security auditing for By source , and Registry for the Task category. Alternatively, you can of course also filter the view using the event IDs.

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In a domain, turn on auditing in a GPO that is linked to the domain. On either a server or a workstation that is not a member of the domain, turn on auditing in a local GPO. Click to select the Define these policy settings check box, click to select the Success check box, click to select the Failure check box, and then click OK. Click to select the Success check box, click to select the Failure check box, and then click OK.

Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly.

Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:. Type the user account or group whose access to this registry key you want to audit, click Check Names to verify the name, and then click OK.

Click OK, and then click OK. You may receive the following message: The current Audit Policy for this computer does not have auditing turned on. If this computer receives audit policy from the domain, please ask a domain administrator to turn on auditing using Group Policy Editor. Otherwise, use the Local Computer Policy Editor to configure the audit policy locally on this computer. If auditing is not turned on, you must turn it on by following the steps in the Turn On Auditing in Group Policy section of this article.

You can also use a security template to audit registry keys. To configure the audit policy, either create a custom security template or modify an existing template, and then use Group Policy to apply this template to multiple computers in a domain or an organizational unit OU.

If you want to modify an existing template, expand the template that you want to use, for example, hisecws high-security workstation template.

Type a name for the template in the Template name box, and then click OK. In the Registry list, click the registry key that you want to use, and then click OK. Click to select the Successful and Failed check boxes next to the type of access that you want to audit for either the selected user or the selected security group, and then click OK.

For example, click to select the Successful and Failed check boxes next to Set Value. Click OK. If you receive the following message, click OK: The current Audit Policy for this computer does not have auditing turned on. Click to select Define these policy settings in the template check box, click to select the Success check box, click to select the Failure check box, and then click OK. If a Save Security Templates dialog box is displayed, click Yes to save the custom security template that you created.

Use Group Policy to apply the security template that contains the audit policy that you configured. To do so, follow these steps:. If you want to apply the security template to the whole domain, right-click the domain, and then click Properties.

If you want to apply the security templates to an organizational unit, expand the domain, right-click the organizational unit, and then click Properties. Click the security template that you created, click to select the Clear this database before importing check box, and then click Open. NOTE: When the Clear this database before importing check box is selected, all of the security settings in the GPO are replaced with those of the security template that you import.

After you configure auditing, the service may not work. This behavior can occur for any of the following reasons:. A site, a domain, or an organizational unit policy setting overrides the audit policy that you configured. To troubleshoot this issue, follow these steps:. In the right pane, view the item in the Security Setting column of the policy that you want to use.

If the security setting of the policy is No auditing , a higher-level GPO may be overriding the audit policy setting that you configured. Permissions on a network are granted for users or computers to complete defined tasks.

Privilege Use security policy settings and audit events allow you to track the use of certain permissions on one or more systems. System security policy settings and audit events allow you to track the following types of system-level changes to a computer:. Global Object Access Auditing policy settings allow administrators to define computer system access control lists SACLs per object type for the file system or for the registry. The specified SACL is then automatically applied to every object of that type.

Auditors can prove that every resource in the system is protected by an audit policy. They can do this task by viewing the contents of the Global Object Access Auditing policy settings. For example, if auditors see a policy setting called "Track all changes made by group administrators," they know that this policy is in effect.

Resource SACLs are also useful for diagnostic scenarios. For example, administrators quickly identify which object in a system is denying a user access by:.

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