17.6.3 Ensure 'Audit Other Object Access Events' is set to 'Success and Failure'

Information

This policy setting allows you to audit events generated by the management of task scheduler jobs or COM+ objects.

For scheduler jobs, the following are audited:

Job created.

Job deleted.

Job enabled.

Job disabled.

Job updated.

For COM+ objects, the following are audited:

Catalog object added.

Catalog object updated.

Catalog object deleted.

The recommended state for this setting is: Success and Failure.

Rationale:

The unexpected creation of scheduled tasks and COM+ objects could potentially be an indication of malicious activity. Since these types of actions are generally low volume, it may be useful to capture them in the audit logs for use during an investigation.

Impact:

If no audit settings are configured, or if audit settings are too lax on the computers in your organization, security incidents might not be detected or not enough evidence will be available for network forensic analysis after security incidents occur. However, if audit settings are too severe, critically important entries in the Security log may be obscured by all of the meaningless entries and computer performance and the available amount of data storage may be seriously affected. Companies that operate in certain regulated industries may have legal obligations to log certain events or activities.

Solution

To establish the recommended configuration via GP, set the following UI path to Success and Failure:

Computer Configuration\Policies\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Advanced Audit Policy Configuration\Audit Policies\Object Access\Audit Other Object Access Events

Default Value:

No Auditing.

See Also

https://workbench.cisecurity.org/files/3784