SQL Server Auditing with Netwrix Auditor

Auditing SQL Server configuration and content changes is essential to maintaining data security and proving compliance with government and industry regulations. Netwrix Auditor for SQL Server is SQL Server audit software that enables DBAs to track changes made to database and server configuration and detect unauthorized or suspicious activity that could result in unsanctioned access to the data.

Microsoft SQL Server is essential to your business. But it’s an incredibly dynamic system: data, server configurations, security settings, databases and tables can all change on a daily basis, making it hard to keep track of changes and ensure accountability, especially in environments managed by multiple DBAs and operators. Therefore, efficient SQL Server change tracking is critical. Netwrix Auditor for SQL Server enables you to stay on top of what’s going on across your SQL servers in a productive and convenient way.

Administrators responsible for day-to-day operations of SQL Server must ensure not only the efficiency of SQL Server monitoring and high database performance, but also that its configurations — and all subsequent changes — align with IT security policies, so no risks can jeopardize sensitive information. Netwrix Auditor for SQL Server complements your SQL Server monitoring tools by delivering visibility into SQL activity that facilitates stable server performance, stronger data security and easier root cause analysis of security issues across the entire SQL ecosystem. Plus, its extensive activity tracking and reporting capabilities simplify control over the SQL Server environment and make compliance checks less painful.

Keeping an eye on activity inside SQL Server using only native tools can be challenging for any DBA. Without a proper reporting and analytics tool that can present audit data analysis in a human-readable format, be ready to spend your valuable time writing Transact-SQL scripts and manually sifting through an endless number of events. Netwrix’s SQL reporting software provides detailed reports and dashboards that go far beyond native auditing, bringing more insight into each action across your critical databases, so you can more easily spot threats and better safeguard your data. In addition, the solution significantly simplifies reporting processes, speeds investigations and facilitates root cause analysis, and stores your audit trail in a cost-efficient storage.

Many organizations are required to keep SQL Server audit data for years, either for further review and in-house investigations, or to address auditors’ questions at future compliance audits. To manage audit events, you can leverage native auditing tools, such as SQL Server Management Studio. This tool can help you create triggers, manage database objects (DBOs), make your own schemas, and define database audit specification objects — provided you know Transact-SQL. And you can use other native tools to write SQL Server object access events to the Windows Security log. But archiving your ever-growing SQL Server audit trail for the long term can be a challenge, and native tools don’t provide the reporting you need. Netwrix Auditor for SQL Server eliminates these stresses by automating data collection and safely storing your audit trail for many years, while also providing the comprehensive reporting you need.

Because a large number of actions take place on SQL Server on a daily basis, illicit actions — such as unwarranted changes to database objects, securables, or database principles, a failed attempt to create the DBO schema, or an unauthorized login — can easily go unnoticed. Similarly, if a user is granted a new server role or this user’s mapping was changed, you need to know immediately. Netwrix Auditor for SQL Server helps you stay on top of the changes to SQL Server permissions by delivering actionable intelligence so that you can efficiently shield your critical assets.

To ensure that the sensitive data stored in your database tables is well secured, you need to keep an eye on all successful and failed logins to your SQL servers, including when each access attempt occurred and who is accountable for it. By enabling strong SQL Server login auditing, you can quickly spot suspicious login attempts and trace logs of unauthorized access events, thereby toughening your SQL Server security and preventing your critical data from being compromised.

To get detailed data about events happening in your databases and applications, you can use SQL Server default trace in Microsoft Transact-SQL. As an alternative, to enable security audit, you can also use SQL Server Profiler, which collects activity across your SQL servers in real time. Either way, be ready to manually crawl through piles of events to determine the root cause of a problem. Netwrix Auditor for SQL Server completes the information delivered by your SQL Server default trace with actionable details, out-of-the-box reporting, and a Google-like search capability so that you can identify abnormal activity faster and efficiently secure your critical assets.

Is your organization obliged to adhere to regulatory compliance requirements? Do you worry about the security of your sensitive data and then prove at your next security compliance check that your data is safe? Stress no more about how you can efficiently find evidence of your SQL Server compliance by complementing your database management solutions with streamlined reporting and deep insight into every change and access event. Netwrix Auditor for SQL Server delivers ready-to-use reports that have all the details you need to address auditors’ requests. Plus, you can store your SQL Server audit trail securely for years and easily access it whenever an auditor knocks at your door.

Many organizations rely on SQL Server databases to store highly sensitive information, such as electronic health records or credit card data. An unauthorized or unnecessary access to these tables and lists of data can jeopardize security and compliance, so it’s vital for database administrators to keep an eye on SQL Server login history. The activity log needs to include when each login occurred, and exactly what actions each user performed. This pervasive visibility helps you detect possible privilege abuse, minimize the risk of data breaches and ensure that your data is accessed only when there is an approved business need.

If someone tries to access or delete sensitive data that resides in your Microsoft SQL Server databases, you need to know about it as soon as possible. Even a simple modification to a critical table or row can lead to data distortion or loss that could disrupt your business. While regular monitoring of logs can help you stay aware of what’s going on in your database, it won’t enable you to respond immediately the way SQL alerts do. Netwrix Auditor provides predefined alerts on threat patterns and enables you to easily create custom alerts as well. Simply specify one or more recipients for each alert and choose the notification method you prefer: email or SMS. The alerts provide detailed, easy-to-understand event descriptions to enable quick, effective response.

DBAs need to ensure that they are aware of what is happening on their Microsoft SQL Server databases, because any improper change or access event could result in a breach or database unavailability. By enabling SQL Server audit log collection, they can audit events that occur on their databases and instances of SQL Server, continuously review audit data, and more quickly detect suspicious activity that could put database security at risk. Netwrix Auditor for SQL Server enables reliable SQL Server database audit — saving you time on reporting while delivering deep insights that help you spot and investigate threats before it’s too late.

Can you be sure that no unwarranted Microsoft SQL Server change or login has gone under your radar? Since any misuse of privileges by a DBA or system administrator could lead to downtime, data loss or compliance failures, you need to keep tabs on SQL Server activity. One option is to use SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS); however, you’ll have to manually write queries and pore through cryptic data from various data sources. Netwrix Auditor for SQL Server, on the other hand, will streamline your SQL Server reporting by delivering easy-to-read reports enriched with all the necessary details, such as who performed each action and when and where it happened, so you can stay on top of SQL Server activity and identify insider threats before they lead to serious problems for the business.