How to audit changes in AD Objects

Windows Server 2008 offeres the ability to record changes to AD objects. Both what the value of the object was, and what it is now. It also records who did it. Below is the procedure to set it up.
- Open Group Policy Manager
- Expand you forest until you get to the Default Domain Policy.
- Right click the Default Domain Policy and click Edit.
- Expand Computer Configuration --> Windows Settings -->Security Settings --> Local Policies and click Audit Policy.
- Set Audit directory services access to log both success and failures.
- Close Group Policy Manager.
- Open a command prompt.
- Type auditpol /set /subcategory:"directory service changes" /success:enable
You can verify the current settigns by using the following command: auditpol /get /category:"DS Access"
In the lab, the next step was to create and modify user account. What the lab did not do is tell us to enable auditing for the account being used.
- Open Active Directory Users and Computers.
- Click View and click Advanced Features.
- Right click the OU containing the objects that you want to audit and click Properties.
- Click the Security tab.
- Click Advanced.
- Click Auditing tab.
- Now you need to add the user or group that you want to audit directory changes for inside this OU.
To Audit for Account creation (Event 5137) or movement (Event 5139) of an object into this OU, audit for success on: Create User Objects
-To audit for modification (Event 5136) you will want to audit for sucess on: Write All Properties. In practice two events 5136 will appear. The first is the old setting. The second is the new setting.

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Jason Yoder, MCT

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