Information stored in one location is vulnerable to accidental or incidental deletion or alteration. Off-loading is a common process in information systems with limited audit storage capacity. The DBMS may write audit records to database tables, to files in the file system, to other kinds of local repository, or directly to a centralized log management system. Whatever the method used, it must be compatible with off-loading the records to the centralized system.
Review the system documentation for a description of how audit records are off-loaded. If the DBMS has a continuous network connection to the centralized log management system, but the DBMS audit records are not written directly to the centralized log management system or transferred in near-real-time, this is a finding. If the DBMS does not have a continuous network connection to the centralized log management system, and the DBMS audit records are not transferred to the centralized log management system weekly or more often, this is a finding.
Configure the DBMS or deploy and configure software tools to transfer audit records to a centralized log management system, continuously and in near-real time where a continuous network connection to the log management system exists, or at least weekly in the absence of such a connection.