V-271345

Discussion

It is critical for the appropriate personnel to be aware if a system is at risk of failing to process audit logs as required. Without a real-time alert, security personnel may be unaware of an impending failure of the audit capability, and system operation may be adversely affected. The appropriate support staff include, at a minimum, the information system security officer (ISSO), the database administrator (DBA), and the system administrator (SA). A failure of database auditing will result in either the database continuing to function without auditing or in a complete halt to database operations. When audit processing fails, appropriate personnel must be alerted immediately to avoid further downtime or unaudited transactions. Alerts provide organizations with urgent messages. Real-time alerts provide these messages immediately (i.e., the time from event detection to alert occurs in seconds or less). Alerts can be generated using tools like the SQL Server Agent Alerts and Database Mail.

Check Content

Review SQL Server settings, OS, or third-party logging software settings to determine whether a real-time alert will be sent to the appropriate personnel when auditing fails for any reason.

If real-time alerts are not sent upon auditing failure, this is a finding.