Audit Log

An audit log is a record of system events that is used to track user activity and changes within an IT infrastructure. Audit logs provide visibility into who accessed systems and data, what actions they performed, and when these events occurred. Audit logs play a crucial role in security and compliance by enabling organizations to look back at a detailed history of system and data use. For example, if unauthorized access is suspected, audit logs can be reviewed to determine what was accessed, who accessed it, and when. Audit logs also support forensic analysis in the event of a security breach or compliance violation. Key types of events that are typically logged include user logins, data reads/writes, administrator actions, policy changes, and system events like shutdowns or failures. Audit logs are often centralized in a Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) system, where they can be analyzed for suspicious patterns and correlated with other event data. Maintaining detailed, tamper-proof audit logs and monitoring them proactively allows organizations to more quickly detect and respond to security incidents or compliance issues.