So, the U.S. government shutdown on October 1st with much focus on “essential” and “non-essential” employees. In the case of an organizational shutdown (read: pretty much every weekend, holiday, etc.) IT is always on the “essential” employees list.
Since IT, no doubt, runs on a skeleton crew after regular business hours, how can an organization keep track of any changes made during these periods? When compliance standards mandate knowing for certain that sensitive data hasn’t been accessed improperly, it is imperative to have visibility into changes in security settings providing access to that data, ensuring no changes have been made that may impact compliance mandates, as well as security or productivity.
The answer lies in detecting changes to security in your organization’s most critical systems such as Active Directory, being alerted to these changes when they occur and having visibility into exactly what was modified.
Now, don’t get me wrong – IT’s not necessarily up to something malicious. However, it is important to know what changes are being made in the name of keeping everything running that may have unforeseen side effects.
If an organization’s management team is kept in the loop of any changes, even during a “shutdown”, mandates to maintain compliance standards and security policies can easily be monitored.
So, don’t fret a “shutdown” – with proper auditing in place, organizations can rest assure that systems remain secure, compliance is maintained and data integrity is preserved.
