#53SECURITYPROTECTElite

Access Audit Trail

Who accessed what, when

Medium

Overview

Log and monitor all access to systems and secrets. Detect anomalous access patterns.

Why It Matters

Answer 'who touched prod?' during incidents. Complete access log.

The Risk

Without audit trails, breaches go undetected. When incidents happen, you can't determine what the attacker accessed or when. Compliance audits fail. Insider threats operate invisibly.

Implementation Components

A complete implementation of this capability includes:

  • Comprehensive audit logging (auditd, sshd, sudo)
  • Centralized log aggregation
  • Long retention (90+ days minimum)
  • Searchable audit trail interface
  • Alerting on suspicious patterns (off-hours access, failed attempts)
  • Tamper-proof logging (logs to immutable storage)

Implementation Pattern

  1. 1Enable audit logging
  2. 2Log SSH sessions
  3. 3Aggregate logs
  4. 4Alert on suspicious patterns

Pipeline Coverage

This continuous capability monitors and applies to the following pipeline phases:

RELEASE

Tool Examples

These are examples, not endorsements. Choose what fits your context.