How Is Auditing Related to Security?

Solaris auditing helps to detect potential security breaches by revealing suspicious or abnormal patterns of system usage. Solaris auditing also provides a means to trace suspect actions back to a particular user, thus serving as a deterrent. Users who know that their activities are being audited are less likely to attempt malicious activities.

To protect a computer system, especially a system on a network, requires mechanisms that control activities before system processes or user processes begin. Security requires tools that monitor activities as the activities occur. Security also requires reports of activities after the activities have happened. Initial configuration of Solaris auditing requires that parameters be set before users log in or system processes begin. Most auditing activities involve monitoring current events and reporting those events that meet the specified parameters. How Solaris auditing monitors and reports these events is discussed in detail in Chapter 29, Planning for Solaris Auditing and Chapter 30, Managing Solaris Auditing (Tasks).

Auditing cannot prevent hackers from unauthorized entry. However, the auditing service can report, for example, that a specific user performed specific actions at a specific time and date. The audit report can identify the user by entry path and user name. Such information can be reported immediately to your terminal and to a file for later analysis. Thus, the auditing service provides data that helps you determine the following:

• How system security was compromised

• What loopholes need to be closed to ensure the desired level of security