Netwrix Auditor User Guide
Netwrix Auditor User Guide
User Guide
Version: 10
9/14/2021
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction 7
2. First Launch 17
3.2. Risk assessment, Compliance mapping, Live news, and Health tiles 21
3.4. Other 22
3.7.3. Review risks and pin an important one to the home screen 29
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4.2.3. Exporting and Importing Filters 35
5.1.1. Troubleshooting 47
6. Alerts 68
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7.3. IT Risk Assessment Dashboard 83
8. Behavior Anomalies 90
9. Subscriptions 95
Index 101
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1. Introduction
1. Introduction
Looking for online version? Check out Netwrix Auditor help center.
This guide describes Intelligence features that help enable complete visibility in your environment. The
guide is intended for Netwrix Auditor users (both Reviewers and Global administrators) who want to take
advantage of searching and filtering of audit data in the easy–to–use searching interface, generating
system–specific and overview reports, etc.
l Investigate incidents and browse your audit data with Google-like interactive search
This guide is intended for developers and Managed Service Providers. It provides instructions on how to
use Netwrix Auditor Configuration API for managing Netwrix Auditor configuration objects.
NOTE: It assumed that document readers have prior experience with RESTful architecture and solid
understanding of HTTP protocol. Technology and tools overview is outside the scope of the
current guide.
The product functionality described in this guide applies to Netwrix Auditor Standard Edition. Note that
Free Community Edition provides limited functionality. See Product Editions for more information.
Netwrix Auditor includes applications for Active Directory, Active Directory Federation Services, Azure AD,
Exchange, Office 365, Windows file servers, EMC storage devices, NetApp filer appliances, Nutanix Files,
network devices, SharePoint, Oracle Database, SQL Server, VMware, Windows Server, and User Activity.
Empowered with a RESTful API, the platform delivers visibility and control across all of your on-premises
or cloud-based IT systems in a unified way.
Major benefits:
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1. Introduction
To learn how Netwrix Auditor can help your achieve your specific business objectives, refer to Netwrix
Auditor Best Practices Guide.
Application Features
Netwrix Auditor for Active Netwrix Auditor for Active Directory detects and reports on all
Directory changes made to the managed Active Directory domain, including AD
objects, Group Policy configuration, directory partitions, and more. It
makes daily snapshots of the managed domain structure that can be
used to assess its state at present or at any moment in the past. The
product provides logon activity summary, reports on interactive and
non-interactive logons including failed logon attempts.
Netwrix Auditor for Azure AD Netwrix Auditor for Azure AD detects and reports on all changes
made to Azure AD configuration and permissions, including Azure AD
objects, user accounts, passwords, group membership, and more.
The products also reports on successful and failed logon attempts.
Netwrix Auditor for Exchange Netwrix Auditor for Exchange detects and reports on all changes
made to Microsoft Exchange configuration and permissions. In
addition, it tracks mailbox access events in the managed Exchange
organization, and notifies the users whose mailboxes have been
accessed by non–owners.
Netwrix Auditor for Exchange Netwrix Auditor for Exchange Online detects and reports on all
Online changes made to Microsoft Exchange Online.
Netwrix Auditor for Netwrix Auditor for SharePoint Online detects and reports on all
SharePoint Online changes made to SharePoint Online.
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1. Introduction
Application Features
Netwrix Auditor for Windows Netwrix Auditor for Windows File Servers detects and reports on all
File Servers changes made to Windows– based file servers, including
modifications of files, folders, shares and permissions, as well as
failed and successful access attempts.
Netwrix Auditor for EMC Netwrix Auditor for EMC detects and reports on all changes made to
EMC VNX/VNXe and Isilon storages, including modifications of files,
folders, shares and permissions, as well as failed and successful
access attempts.
Netwrix Auditor for NetApp Netwrix Auditor for NetApp detects and reports on all changes made
to NetApp Filer appliances both in cluster- and 7-modes, including
modifications of files, folders, shares and permissions, as well as
failed and successful access attempts.
Netwrix Auditor for Nutanix Netwrix Auditor for Nutanix Files detects and reports on changes
Files made to SMB shared folders, subfolders and files stored on the
Nutanix File Server, including failed and successful attempts.
Netwrix Auditor for Oracle Netwrix Auditor for Oracle Database detects and reports on all
Database changes made to your Oracle Database instance configuration,
privileges and security settings, including database objects and
directories, user accounts, audit policies, sensitive data, and triggers.
The product also reports on failed and successful access attempts.
Netwrix Auditor for Netwrix Auditor for SharePoint detects and reports on read access
SharePoint and changes made to SharePoint farms, servers and sites, including
modifications of content, security settings and permissions.
Netwrix Auditor for Netwrix Auditor for SQL Server detects and reports on all changes to
SQL Server SQL Server configuration, database content, and logon activity.
Netwrix Auditor for VMware Netwrix Auditor for VMware detects and reports on all changes made
to ESX servers, folders, clusters, resource pools, virtual machines and
their virtual hardware configuration.
Netwrix Auditor for Windows Netwrix Auditor for Windows Server detects and reports on all
Server changes made to Windows– based server configuration, including
hardware devices, drivers, software, services, applications,
networking settings, registry settings, DNS, and more. It also provides
automatic consolidation and archiving of event logs data. With a
stand- alone Event Log Manager tool, Netwrix Auditor collects
Windows event logs from multiple computers across the network,
stores them centrally in a compressed format, and enables
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1. Introduction
Application Features
Netwrix Auditor for User Netwrix Auditor for User Sessions detects and reports on all user
Activity actions during a session with the ability to monitor specific users,
applications and computers. The product can be configured to
capture a video of users' activity on the audited computers.
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1. Introduction
l Netwrix Auditor Server — the central component that handles the collection, transfer and
processing of audit data from the various data sources (audited systems). Data from the sources
not yet supported out of the box is collected using RESTful Integration API.
l Netwrix Auditor Client — a component that provides a friendly interface to authorized personnel
who can use this console UI to manage Netwrix Auditor settings, examine alerts, reports and search
results. Other users can obtain audit data by email or with 3rd party tools — for example, reports
can be provided to the management team via the intranet portal.
l Data sources — entities that represent the types of audited systems supported by Netwrix Auditor
(for example, Active Directory, Exchange Online, NetApp storage system, and so on), or the areas
you are interested in (Group Policy, User Activity, and others).
l Long-Term Archive — a file-based repository storage keeps the audit data collected from all your
data sources or imported using Integration API in a compressed format for a long period of time.
Default retention period is 120 months.
l Audit databases — these are Microsoft SQL Server databases used as operational storage. This
type of data storage allows you to browse recent data, run search queries, generate reports and
alerts.
Typically, data collected from the certain data source (for example, Exchange Server) is stored to the
dedicated Audit database and the long-term archive. So, you can configure as many databases as
the data sources you want to process. Default retention period for data stored in the Audit
database is 180 days.
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1. Introduction
1. Authorized administrators prepare IT infrastructure and data sources they are going to audit, as
recommended in Netwrix Auditor documentation and industry best practices; they use Netwrix
Auditor client (management UI) to set up automated data processing.
2. Netwrix Auditor collects audit data from the specified data source (application, server, storage
system, and so on).
To provide a coherent picture of changes that occurred in the audited systems, Netwrix Auditor can
consolidate data from multiple independent sources (event logs, configuration snapshots, change
history records, etc.). This capability is implemented with Netwrix Auditor Server and Integration
API.
NOTE: For details on custom data source processing workflow, refer to the Integration API
documentation.
3. Audit data is stored to the Audit databases and the repository (Long-Term Archive) and preserved
there according to the corresponding retention settings.
4. Netwrix Auditor analyzes the incoming audit data and alerts appropriate staff about critical
changes, according to the built-in alerts you choose to use and any custom alerts you have created.
Authorized users use the Netwrix Auditor Client to view pre-built dashboards, run predefined
reports, conduct investigations, and create custom reports based on their searches. Other users
obtain the data they need via email or third-party tools.
5. To enable historical data analysis, Netwrix Auditor can extract data from the repository and import
it to the Audit database, where it becomes available for search queries and report generation.
Netwrix Auditor Enterprise Advanced can be evaluated for 20 days. During this period you have free,
unlimited access to all features and functions. After the evaluation license expires, the product will
prompt you to supply a commercial license where you can choose if you want to stay on advanced
version or have limited set of functions available in Business Essentials. Alternatively, you can switch to
Free Community Edition.
Free Community Edition helps you maintain visibility into your environment by delivering daily reports
that summarize changes that took place in the last 24 hours. However, you will no longer be able to use
interactive search, predefined reports, alerts and dashboards, or store your security intelligence. After
switching to free mode, you may need to re-arrange your audit configuration due to the limitations.
When running Free Community Edition, at any time you can upgrade to Enterprise Advanced or Business
Essentials, simply by supplying a commercial license in Settings → Licenses.
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1. Introduction
Data sources
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1. Introduction
one OU
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1. Introduction
Who – + +
What + + +
When + + +
Where + + +
Workstation + + +
Intelligence
Search – No user +
profile details
in Search
Subscriptions – Up to 2 +
recipients
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1. Introduction
Alerts – Up to 2 +
recipients of
alerts;
No tags in
alerts
Data in – – +
Data out – – +
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2. First Launch
2. First Launch
To start using Netwrix Auditor
NOTE: This step is required if Netwrix Auditor is installed remotely (not on computer that hosts
Netwrix Auditor Server).
You can configure a single Netwrix Auditor client to work with several Netwrix Auditor
Servers. To switch to another server, reopen the Netwrix Auditor client and provide another
host name (e.g., rootdc2, WKSWin12r2.enterprise.local).
For your convenience, the Host field is prepopulated with your computer name. By default, you can
log in with your Windows credentials by simply clicking Connect. Select Use specified credentials if
you want to log in as another user.
NOTE: Make sure you have sufficient permissions to access the product. If you cannot log into
Netwrix Auditor with your Windows credentials, contact your Netwrix Auditor administrator.
After logging into Netwrix Auditor, you will see the following window:
Take a closer look at the Home page. It contains everything you need to enable complete visibility in your
environment.
See next:
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2. First Launch
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l AuditIntelligence tiles
l Configuration tile
l Favorite reports
l Other
l The first link prompts you to create a monitoring plan for at least one data source (such as Active
Directory, Exchange Online or network devices). For detailed instructions on how to create a
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monitoring plan, refer to Monitoring Plans. Wait until the initial data collection completes.
l Clicking the second link opens a dashboard that lists all the monitoring plans you’ve created, along
with the status and last activity time for each. Review this list and address any errors or warnings, as
explained in Monitoring Overview.
l Once have created a monitoring plan and verified that it is properly configured, run one or more
searches to get insights into your IT infrastructure. See View and Search Collected Data for more
information.
When you have completed these three steps, you can close this tile by clicking the "Close" link at the
bottom. The checklist will be replaced by statistics across your audited systems. See Customize Home
screen for more information.
Tile Description
NEW MONITORING PLAN Create a new monitoring plan for a particular data source.
SEARCH ACTIVITY RECORDS Investigate incidents by running interactive searches using data
collected across the entire IT infrastructure.
REPORTS Access the predefined reports for each data source and create
custom reports.
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Option Description
Monitoring plans Opens the Monitoring plans wizard, where you can add, edit and
delete monitoring plans, as well as group them into folders.
Alert settings Opens the All Alerts wizard, where you can create, edit, and enable
or disable alerts on critical events in your environment.
RISK ASSESSMENT Opens the Risk Assessment Overview dashboard, which identifies
possible configuration issues in your environment that could impact
security.
COMPLIANCE MAPPING Enables you to review how Netwrix Auditor can help you comply
common standards and regulations.
LIVE NEWS Shows the latest Netwrix news, including product updates.
HEALTH STATUS Opens the Health Status dashboard, which provides at- a- glance
insight into product health, data collection, storage and more.
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Tile Description
ALERTS HISTORY Clicking this tile opens the Alerts History dashboard, which provides
detailed information about the latest alerts triggered in your IT
infrastructure, enriched with actionable charts and timelines.
3.4. Other
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See next:
l Customization examples
Be sure to plan your screen space, considering which tiles you want to pin and their dimensions. You
cannot modify the size of any tile; however, horizontal scrolling is supported.
Rest assured that your configurations and data will not be affected by any changes you make to the
home screen.
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l To remove a tile from the home screenTo remove a tile from the home screenTo remove a tile from
the home screen
3. Either search for the tile you want by name, or select it from the list of tiles. Note that tiles are
grouped into menus; to view all tiles within a menu, check Show all menu tiles.
4. Click Add and the selected tile appears on the home screen.
6. Click Apply.
4. Click Apply.
NOTE: You may rest assured, your configuration and data will be preserved during this operation.
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3. To change whether the report is a favorite, click the star icon in the upper right-hand corner of the
report description.
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Restore Default Repopulates the Favorites sub- folder with all reports that have been marked
Favorite.
When using Role-Based Access in Netwrix Auditor, if several users mark the same
report as Favorite, then that report will be removed from the Favorites list if a
user removes the report from the Favorites list. Using the Restore Default option
will re-add the report to the Favorites list for all users that have not removed the
Favorite mark.
Refresh Runs the reports in the Favorites folder to display the most recent information.
View Opens the Preview Report page. There, you can modify report options (such as
the timeframe) if desired, and then click View Report to see the resulting report.
See Viewing Reports for more information.
Subscribe Opens the Add Subscription to Report page. See Create Subscriptions for more
information.
Add to Favorites This option is greyed out when viewing the Favorites list, since all the reports
shown have already been added to Favorites.
Go to Original Expands the sub-folder in which the report is originally located. For example,
clicking Go to Original for the Enterprise Overview report will expand the
Predefined → Organization Level Reports sub-folder.
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l What is next?
2. Open a report you are interested in; for example, Account Permissions in Active Directory:
3. Click the report menu (three dots) to the right and select Add to favorites. (Alternatively, click the
star icon in the upper right corner of the report description.)
The report is added to the Favorite reports section on the home page and you can run it instantly.
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2. Specify search filters to narrow your search results. See Use Filters (Simple Mode) for more
information.
3. Click Search.
5. Navigate to Tools and click Create alert to get instant email or SMS notifications on suspicious
activity that matches your current search criteria.
6. Specify a name for the new alert. See Create Alerts for more information.
Now, whenever there is activity that matches your search criteria, the appropriate people will receive a
notification. You can also review the list of triggered alerts by clicking the Alerts tile on the home page,
which opens the Alerts overview dashboard. See Alerts overview for more information.
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2. Review the Risk Assessment Overview dasbord and select the risk you are intersted in, such as
" User Accounts with administrative permissions ". See IT Risk Assessment Overview for more
information.
c. Search the group of risks you want to pin to the home page (in this case, the "Permissions"
risks group):
d. Click Add.
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NOTE: To review collected data, you must be assigned the Global administrator or Global reviewer
Netwrix Auditor role. Users with the Reviewer role on a certain plan or folder have limited access
to data—only within their delegated scope. See Netwrix Auditor Administration Guide for more
information.
l Active Directory
l Azure AD
l Exchange
l Exchange Online
l Network Devices
l Oracle Database
l SharePoint
l SharePoint Online
l SQL Server
l VMware
l Windows Server
l Group Policy
l Logon Activity
l Netwrix API—data imported to the Audit Database from other sources using Netwrix Auditor
Integration API
Netwrix Auditor executes interactive search queries against data stored in the audit databases, that is, on
data collected in the last 180 days (default retention period). If you want to investigate incidents that
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occurred more than 180 days ago, then you should import that data from the Long-Term Archive. See
Investigations.
Starting with version 10, you can add any Netwrix Auditor elements (a dashboard, report, alert, risk, etc.)
to the Home screen to access them instantly. See Home Screen (Navigation) and Customize Home screen
for more information.
There you can use the UI controls to run the variety of search queries that will fecth you exactly the data
you need.
l To view all audit data stored in all Audit Databases by all monitoring plans, click Search button in
the center.
NOTE: Be aware that this type of search query may take time due to a large amount of data. Thus, it
is recommended that instead of retrieveing a massive data set, you pre- configure your
search query using filters.
By default, Netwrix Auditor shows only the top 2,000 entries in the search results.
l To pre-configure your search query before you click Search, you can add filters. Then the search
query will return only data matching your filtering criteria. See Use Filters (Simple Mode)
You can also use advanced filtering capabilities based on regular expressions (they involve filter
fields and conditions). See Advanced Mode for details.
l By default, search results are open in the same window, so the subsequent search results will
overwrite the previous search results. To view them in different windows, click Open in new
window.
l In addition, you can customize your view by selecting columns to display. See Customize View
Use search results for your own needs: save, share, create search-based alerts, subscribe to periodic
delivery of search query results, etc. See Save Search Query Results for more information.
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You can also use the Search window to examine details for the selected activity record, or watch a video
recording (for User Activity data).
1. Select the activity record which details you want to review. Its key fields and user (initiator) account
details will be displayed in the right pane.
2. To display all fields and copy them if necessary, click the Full screen... link on the right.
If you are examining User Activity entries, click the Show video... link below the entry. Review details
and play a video by clicking the Show video on the right.
3. You can instruct Netwrix Auditor to include or exclude this activity record from the search query
results, as described in the Include and Exclude Data
l Make sure that data collection is configured properly in the monitoring plan settings.
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See next:
l Advanced Mode
l Customize View
l Add different filters to your search. Search results will be sorted by all selected filters since they
work as a logical conjunction (e.g., Who: Administrator AND Action: Added).
l Specify several values in the same filter to search for any of them (e.g., Action: Modified ORAction:
Removed). To do this, select a filter again and specify a new value.
NOTE: Spaces do not separate values, so the whole expression will be included in your search as a
single value. For example, if you want to search for any of three names, do not enter Anna
Mark Bill but instead create a separate filter entry for each name.
Specify an account name (e.g., John) to find all entries containing it (e.g.,
Domain1\John, Domain1\Johnson, Domain2\Johnny, [email protected]).
For exact match, use quotation marks and provide a user name in Domain\User or
UPN format (e.g., “Domain1\John” or "[email protected]") .
Select an action type from the list (Added, Removed, Modified, Read).
For additional actions, navigate to Advanced mode. See Advanced Mode for more
information.
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Filter Description
Specify an object name (e.g., Policy) to find all entries containing it (e.g., HiSecPolicy,
\\FileSserver\Share\NewFolder\NewPolicy.docx,
http://sharepoint/sites/collection1/Lists/Policy).
For an exact match, use quotation marks and provide an object name in the
format that is typical for your data source (e.g., “HiSecPolicy”).
Specify a timeframe or provide a custom date range. Netwrix Auditor allows you to
see changes that occurred today, yesterday, in the last 7 or 30 days, or within the
specified date range.
Specify a resource name (e.g., Enterprise) to find all entries containing it (e.g.,
Enterprise-SQL, FileStorage.enterprise.local). The resource name can be a FQDN or
NETBIOS server name, Active Directory domain or container, SQL Server instance,
SharePoint farm, VMware host, etc.
For an exact match, use quotation marks and provide a resource name in the
format that is typical for your data source (e.g., “Enterprise-SQL”).
1. Click a filter type icon. Enter a value you want to search for.
Alternatively, you can type a value directly into the Search field.
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l To further restrict your search, right-click the value and select a filter from the pop-up menu.
To search across all columns in the results view (everywhere—Who, What, Where, Action,
etc.), leave it as is .
2. Click Search to apply your filters. By default, all entries that contain the filter value are shown.
NOTE: If you need to modify the When filter, delete it and add a new value, or
navigate to the Advanced mode (Simple mode does not support its
modification).
To... Use...
Export Copy search — copies the search filters that are currently applied to your search. This
can be helpful if you want to share your search with a colleague (e.g., by pasting it in
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To... Use...
Import Paste search — pastes the search filters you copied before. These can be filters
copied from a previous search or those someone shared with you.
To modify view:
1. Navigate to Tools
2. Click Select columns. The dialog that opens shows the search columns currently selected for
display.
3. Check the columns you want to include and clear unwanted ones.
5. Click Hide details if you want to hide the Details pane with the activity record and user (initiator)
account details.
Switch to Advanced mode to review your current search in details and modify it if necessary. Click Add to
add a new filter to your search.
l Search Conditions
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Action Limits your search to the selected You are investigating suspicious user
actions only. activity. You have already identified the
intruder and now you want to see if any
Specify an action from the Value list or
files were deleted or moved, and emails
type it yourself. The Action filter in the
sent.
Advanced mode contains actions
besides those available in basic mode Since you are interested in specific
(added, modified, removed, and read). actions only, set the Action filter to
Reported actions vary depending on the Removed, Moved, and Sent.
data source and object type. See
Netwrix Auditor Administration Guide
for more information.
Object type Limits your search to objects of a You noticed that some domain policies
specific type only. were changed and you want to
investigate this issue.
Specify an object type from the Value
list or type it yourself. This filter modifies Your What filter is set to Policy, and so
the What filter. you keep receiving search results such as
HiSecPolicy, \\FS\Share\NewPolicy.docx,
The value list is prepopulated with the
http://corp/sites/col1/Lists/Policy. These
most frequent object types.
entries correspond to different object
types and data sources.
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Data source Limits your search to the selected data You are investigating suspicious user
source only. activity. A user specified in the Who filter
made a lot of changes across your IT
Specify a data source from the Value list
infrastructure, so the search results
or type it yourself.
became difficult to review.
Monitoring Limits your search to the selected plan You are investigating suspicious user
plan only. activity. A user specified in the Who filter
made a lot of changes across your IT
Specify the name from the Value list or
infrastructure, so the search results
type it yourself.
became difficult to review.
Item Limits your search to the selected item Your monitoring plan is configured to
only. track domains and includes your secured
corporate domain and a domain for
This filter can be helpful if have several
temporary employees. You are
items of the same type in your
investigating who logged in your secured
monitoring plan (e.g., two Active
corporate domain outside business
Directory domains).
hours.
Specify the name from the Value list or
You can set the Item filter to this domain
type it yourself.
name to limit the search results and
exclude logons to computers from a less
important domain.
Working Limits your search results to entries that You are investigating an incident and
hours occurred within the specified hours. want to know who accessed sensitive
data outside business hours.
You can use this filter together with
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When if you need, for example, to You can set this filter as Not equal to and
search for activity in the non- business specify the time interval from 8:00 AM to
hours during the last week. 6:00 PM . Filtered data will include only
operations that occurred outside this
interval, that is, during non- business
hours.
Data Limits your search results to entries that You are searching all documents
categories contain sensitive data comply with a containing cardholder data that can
classification rule. potentially be mapped with the PCIDSS
compliance standard.
You can use this filter together with
Equal to PCIDSS to, for example, to You can set this filter as equal to and
search for sensitive files that contain specify the value as PCIDSS. Filtered data
data regulated by the PCIDSS. will contain only files that match this
criteria.
l ShrePoint
l SharePoint Online
Details Limits your search results to entries that You discovered that a registry key was
contain the specified information in the updated to "242464" . Now you want to
Details column. investigate who made the change and
what the value was before.
The Details column normally contains
data specific to your target, e.g., You can set the Details filter to 242464 to
assigned permissions, before and after find this change faster.
values, start and end dates.
Before* Limits your search results to entries that You are investigating an incident in which
contain the specified before value in the the SAM- account- name attribute was
Details column. changed for an account in your Active
Directory domain.
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After* Limits your search results to entries that You are investigating a security incident
contain the specified after value in the and want to know who enabled a local
Details column. Administrator account on your Windows
Server.
Everywhere Limits your search results to entries that You are investigating a security incident.
contain the specified value in any You have already identified the intruder
column. (e.g., BadActor) and now you want to see
all actions made by intruder's account or
with it.
* – If you plan to audit an SQL Server for data changes and browse the results using 'Before' and 'After'
filter values, make sure that the audited SQL database tables have a primary key (or a unique column).
Otherwise, 'Before' and 'After' values will not be reported.
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Contains This operator shows all entries that contain a value If you set the Who filter to
specified in the filter. contains John, you will get
the following results:
Domain1\John,
Domain1\Johnson,
Domain2\Johnny,
[email protected].
Equals This operator shows all entries with the exact value Use this operator if you
specified. Make sure to provide a full object name or want to get precise results,
path. e.g.,
\\FS\Share\NewPolicy.docx.
NOTE: To apply this operator when adding filters in the
Simple mode, provide a value in quotation
marks (e.g., "Domain1\John").
Not equal to This operator shows all entries except those with the If you set the Who filter to
exact value specified. not equal to Domain1\John,
you will exclude the exact
NOTE: In the Search field in the Simple mode, this user specified and find all
operator appears as not, e.g., Who not for the changes performed by
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Starts with This operator shows all entries that start with the If you set the Who filter to
specified value. starts with Domain1\John,
you will find all changes
performed by
Domain1\John,
Domain1\Johnson, and
Domain1\Johnny.
Ends with This operator shows all entries that end with the exact If you set the Who filter to
specified value. ends with John, you will
find all changes performed
by Domain1\John,
Domain2\Dr.John,
Domain3\John.
Does not This operator shows all entries except those that If you set the Who filter to
contain contain the specified value. does not contain John, you
will exclude the following
NOTE: In the Search field in the Simple mode, this users: Domain1\John,
operator appears as not, e.g., Who not for the Domain2\Johnson, and
Who filter. [email protected].
In group This operator relates to the Who filter. It instructs If you set the In group
Netwrix Auditor to show only data for the accounts condition for Who filter to
included in the specified group. Domain\Administrators, only
the data for the accounts
included in that group will
be displayed.
Not in group This operator relates to the Who filter. It instructs If you set the Not in group
Netwrix Auditor to show only data for the accounts not condition for Who filter to
included in the specified group. Domain\Administrators, only
the data for the accounts
not included in that group
will be displayed.
NOTE: When you add a new search filter, the Contains operator is used by default.
To modify conditions for the selected filters, make sure you have switched to the Advanced
search mode.
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The image below represents the same search filters as they are shown in the Search field in the Simple
mode.
1. Review your search results and locate an entry with data you want to exclude or include.
3. Click Exclude from search or Include to search and specify a filter value from the list.
Your exclusions and inclusions will automatically be added to the search filters, limiting the amount of
data shown in the results pane.
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Navigate to Tools in the top right corner of the Search window and select the required action.
Use... To...
Save as Save your search results as custom reports. See Custom Search-Based Reports.
report
Create alert Create an alert with the same set of filters you have just specified for your search.
Create Alerts
Subscribe Create subscription for periodic delivery of the search query results. See
Subscriptions
NOTE: Subscription to the search results is not the same as creation of a custom
report using this search.
Export data Save your search results as a .pdf or .csv file. All audit data from your search query
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Use... To...
results will be exported (unlike the interactive view which is limited to the top 2,000
entries).
NOTE: When exporting large amount of data (e.g., changes made by a newly retired
employee during the last 8 months), it is recommended to use .csv format.
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NOTE: To review intelligence data, you must be assigned the Global administrator or Global reviewer role
in the product. The users assigned the Reviewer role on a certain plan or folder have a limited
access to data— only within a delegated scope. See Netwrix Auditor Administration Guide for
more information.
Review general report types available in Netwrix Auditor to meet your specific business needs:
Predefined reports Predefined reports pack contains over a hundred SSRS- based reports
grouped by business categories and data sources. Predefined reports are
helpful if you are looking for a ready-to-use template for your business
needs. See Predefined Reports for more information.
Compliance reports For your convenience, specific reports are grouped into folders by
corresponding international standards and regulations such as security
controls, information security, etc. See Compliance Reports for more
information.
Custom reports For your convenience, the Reports section has been enhanced with
Custom reports. Initially, the product provides templates for the best
common workflows within Netwrix Auditor. Later, you can always create
custom report from interactive search and find them here. See Custom
Search-Based Reports for more information.
1. Sufficient access rights in Netwrix Auditor, which are provided through role assignment:
o Users with Reviewer role can generate the reports for their delegated scope only, and view
them in any Netwrix Auditor client or in a web browser.
o Users with Global administrator or Global reviewer role can also create subscriptions to reports.
2. The Browser role on the SSRS Report Server. See Netwrix Auditor Installation and Configuration
Guide for more information.
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To view a report
NOTE: Starting with version 10, you can add any Netwrix Auditor elements (a dashboard, report, alert,
risk, etc.) to the Home screen to access them instantly. See Home Screen (Navigation) and
Customize Home screen for more information.
1. In Netwrix Auditor Home screen, click on the left, and in the tree on the left
select the report you need.
TIP: To speed up the process, you can use the Search field, entering the keyword to search by.
5.1.1. Troubleshooting
If no data is displayed in the report, you may need to do the following:
1. Make sure that the Audit Database settings are configured properly in the monitoring plan, and that
data is written to databases that reside on the default SQL Server instance. See Audit Database and
Database Settings for details.
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2. For SSRS-based reports - verify that SSRS (SQL Server Reporting Services) settings are configured
properly. See Audit Database for details.
3. For state-in-time reports - verify that the monitoring plan that provides data for the report has the
corresponding option selected. See Settings for Data Collection for details.
For example, you can update report timeframe, select specific values for Who and Where, apply sorting,
etc.
Filters can be found in the upper part of the Preview Report page:
To apply filters
1. Navigate to Reports, select the report you need and click View.
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l Do not use % in the exclusive filters (e.g., Who (Exclude domain\user)). Otherwise, you will receive an
empty report.
l Enterprise Overview—A dashboard with a set of widgets that provide quick access to important
statistics across the audited IT infrastructure. They allow you to see the activity trends by date, user,
data source, server or audited IT system, and drill through to detailed reports for further analysis.
The Enterprise Overview dashboard aggregates the information on changes from all data sources
and provides a centralized overview. System- specific dashboards reflect all changes across all
monitoring plans where audit of this target system is enabled. See Overview Dashboards for more
information.
l Organization level reports — High- level reports that aggregate data from all data sources and
monitoring plans. They list all activity that occurred across the audited IT infrastructure. Enterprise
Overview provides bird's eye view of changes and activity from all data sources and provides a
centralized overview. See Organization Level Reports for more information.
l Overview diagrams—System-specific diagram reports that aggregate audit data for an auditing
system. They provide a high-level overview of changes within a selected time period. Overviews
consist of four charts, showing the activity trends by date, user, object type or server, and drill
through to detailed reports for further analysis. See Overview Dashboards for more information.
l Change and activity reports—System-specific reports that aggregate audit data for a specific data
source within specified monitoring plans. These reports show detailed data on changes and activity
and provide grouping, sorting and filtering capabilities. Each report has a different set of filters
allowing you to manage collected data in the most convenient way. See Change and Activity Reports
for more information.
l State-in-time reports—System-specific reports that aggregate data for a specific data source within
a specified individual monitoring plan and allow reviewing the point- in- time state of the data
source. These reports are based on daily snapshots and help you paint a picture of your system
configuration at a specific moment in time. See State– in– Time Reports for more information.
Currently, the Windows Server State-in-Time report set provides baselining functionality that help
identify aberrant servers. See Baseline Reports for more information.
l Changes with video reports—Windows server-based reports that provide video recordings of user
activity on audited computers. See Reports with Video for more information.
l Changes with review status reports—Both system-specific and overview reports that can be used
in the basic change management process. These reports allow setting a review status for each
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change and providing comments. See Interactive Reports for Change Management Workflow for
more information.
l Refer to Viewing Reports for detailed instructions on how to find the report you need and view
reports in a web browser.
l Refer to Using Report Filters for detailed instructions on how to apply filters to reports.
The Enterprise Overview dashboard includes diagrams that aggregate data on all monitoring plans and
all data sources, while system-specific dashboards provide quick access to important statistics within one
data source. All dashboards support the drill-down functionality: by clicking on a widget with diagram,
you will be redirected to a report (with the corresponding filtering and grouping of data) that renders the
next level of detail.
NOTE: Starting with version 10, you can add any Netwrix Auditor elements (a dashboard, report, alert,
risk, etc.) to the Home screen to access them instantly. See Home Screen (Navigation) and
Customize Home screen for more information.
l Enterprise Overview
l Active Directory
l Azure AD
l Exchange
l Oracle Database
l SharePoint
l SQL Server
l VMware
l Windows Server
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To open a dashboard
1. In the Reports window, search for overview keyword, using the search field. Click the search result
you need - for example, Active Directory Overview or File Servers Overview.
TIP: To open the Enterprise Overview dashboard, just click the Enterprise Overview tile in the
main Netwrix Auditor page.
2. To fine-tune the dashboard, you can apply Filters or use the Top and Timeframe parameters in the
upper-right corner of the dashboard window.
3. Click the widget to drill down to the detailed report on your area of interest.
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Title Location
SharePoint Online
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NOTE: Each report has a set of filters which help organize audit data in the most convenient way. See
Using Report Filters for more information. You can also create a subscription to any report you
want to receive on a regular basis. See Subscriptions for more information.
Organization Level reports can be found in the Organization Level Reports folder under the Reports
node.
Report Details
Enterprise Overview Dashboard report with diagrams showing all activities and
changes across the monitored data sources.
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Report Details
All Activity with Review Status Shows all activity across the entire IT infrastructure,
including changes, read access and logons. Features
interactive review status to supplement your change
management workflow.
All Changes by Data Source Shows all changes across your IT infrastructure, grouped
by data source.
All Changes by Server Shows all changes across the entire IT infrastructure,
grouped by the server where the change was made.
All Changes by User Shows all changes across your IT infrastructure, grouped
by the user who made the change.
All Integration API Activity Shows all activity records imported with Netwrix Auditor
Integration API.
Netwrix Auditor Self-Audit Help to ensure that the scope of data to be audited is
complete and all changes are in line with the workflows
adopted by your organization.
NOTE: Each report has a set of filters which help organize audit data in the most convenient way. See
Using Report Filters for more information. You can also create a subscription to any report you
want to receive on a regular basis. See Subscriptions for more information.
Azure AD Azure AD
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Exchange Exchange
SharePoint SharePoint
VMware VMware
NOTE: In the report filters, select a monitoring plan you want to generate a report for. To review data
sources and items included in each plan, navigate to the Monitoring Plans section.
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NOTE: Each report has a set of filters which help organize audit data in the most convenient way. See
Using Report Filters for more information. You can also create a subscription to any report you
want to receive on a regular basis. See Subscriptions for more information.
l Active Directory
l Azure AD
l File Servers
l Exchange Online
l Windows Server
l SharePoint
l SharePoint Online
l Group Policy
l SharePoint
l SQL Server
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l Office 365
l VMware
IMPORTANT! To provide data for state-in-time reports, remember to select the Collect data for state-in-
time reports option when you configure a monitoring plan for the selected data source. See
Settings for Data Collection for more information.
The state-in-time reports are available under the Reports node. Depending on the data source, navigate
to the corresponding subfolder, for example, Predefined → Active Directory →Active Directory — State-
in-Time.
NOTE: In the report filters, select a monitoring plan you want to generate a report for. To review data
sources and items included in each plan, navigate to the Monitoring Plans section.
NOTE: Each report has a set of filters which help organize audit data in the most convenient way. See
Using Report Filters for more information. You can also create a subscription to any report you
want to receive on a regular basis. See Subscriptions for more information.
By default, state-in-time reports reflect the current state of the data source. If you want to generate a
report to assess your system at a particular moment in the past, you can select the corresponding
snapshot from the Snapshot Date filter.
NOTE: To be able to generate reports based on different snapshots, ask your Netwrix Auditor Global
administrator to import historical snapshots to the Audit Database, otherwise only the Current
Session option is available in the drop-down list.
When auditing file servers, changes to both access and audit permissions are tracked. To exclude
information on access permissions, contact your Netwrix Auditor Global administrator or Configurator of
this plan.
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You can specify baseline values specific to your organization in one of the following ways:
l As a baseline filter value in the report filters. Baselines in the field should be separated by commas.
While inputting text inline is easy, your baseline values will not be preserved for the next report
generation. You will have to input them every time you generate a report. This method is
recommended you plan to subscribe to this report.
l In a special file stored on the computer where your Audit Database resides.
To secure your baseline values for the next report runs, create a text file with baselines; baselines in
this file should on a separate line. In the report, provide a link to this file inside the baseline filter.
You should create a separate file for each baseline. In this case, the baselines will be reused every
time you run the report.
NOTE: Make sure the account running your SQL Server instance service with Audit Database has
permissions to access the baseline file. Otherwise, Netwrix Auditor will not be able to
process them.
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l Who is active outside of business hours and what are they doing?
l Are there any files likely to contain credentials, Social Security numbers, PHI or other sensitive data?
Analytics reports can be found in the User Behavior and Blind Spot Analysis folder under the
Predefined node.
NOTE: If you are sure that some audit data is missing (e.g., you do not see information on your file
servers in reports and search results), verify that the Audit Database settings are configured and
that data is written to databases that reside on the default SQL Server instance.
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By default, Netwrix Auditor allows generating reports and running interactive searches on data
collected in the last 180 days. If you want to investigate incidents that occurred more than 180
days ago, ask your Netwrix Auditor Global administrator to import that data from the Long-Term
Archive.
NOTE: Each report has a set of filters which help organize audit data in the most convenient way. See
Using Report Filters for more information. You can also create a subscription to any report you
want to receive on a regular basis. See Subscriptions for more information.
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This capability can supplement your organization's workflow of monitoring and resolving potential issues
through the following automated course of action:
1. The reported changes to the monitored environment are assigned the New status by default.
2. If a change seems unauthorized, or requires further analysis, you can click the Click to update
status link next to the change detailed data:
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3. In the Review status dialog for selected change, set its status to In Review and provide a reason.
4. Once the change has been approved of, or rolled back, you can set its status to Resolved.
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Group Policy Active Directory → Group Policy Changes → All Group Policy
Changes with Review Status
NOTE: In the report filters, select a monitoring plan you want to generate a report for. To review data
sources and items included in each plan, navigate to the Monitoring Plans section.
They list
NOTE: Each report has a set of filters which help organize audit data in the most convenient way. See
Using Report Filters for more information. You can also create a subscription to any report you
want to receive on a regular basis. See Subscriptions for more information.
NOTE: In the report filters, select a monitoring plan you want to generate a report for. To review data
sources and items included in each plan, navigate to the Monitoring Plans section.
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NOTE: Each report has a set of filters which help organize audit data in the most convenient way. See
Using Report Filters for more information. You can also create a subscription to any report you
want to receive on a regular basis. See Subscriptions for more information.
To play a video
1. Navigate to Reports → User Activity. Select any report and click View.
NOTE: To open User Activity report for the selected user or server, you can also click the link in the Who
and Where columns of the All Users Activity report.
l FERPA
l GDPR
l GLBA
l HIPAA
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l ISO/IEC 27001
l NERC
l SOX
l CJIS
You can find Compliance folders under the Reports node in the Compliance folder. Each compliance
folder provides overview on a selected standard, to read it, click on the folder name. Click Read More to
learn more about mapping between these standards and Netwrix Auditor reports.
NOTE: In the report filters, select a monitoring plan you want to generate a report for. To review data
sources and items included in each plan, navigate to the Monitoring Plans section.
l Refer to Viewing Reports for detailed instructions on how to find the report you need and view
reports in a web browser.
l Refer to Using Report Filters for detailed instructions on how to apply filters to reports.
Moreover, custom reports are shared between all Netwrix Auditor clients that have access to the same
Netwrix Auditor Server (the main component responsible for collecting and processing audit data).
For your convenience, you can create additional folders for your custom reports. Select Add Folder under
the Custom section and specify the name for a new folder. Then, select a custom report and move it to
the new folder.
NOTE: The example custom report results apply to AD or Group Policy modifications by administrator.
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NOTE: Refer to View and Search Collected Data for detailed instructions on how to apply filters
when searching audit data.
4. In the Specify a name for your custom report dialog, specify a name. Make sure to specify a
unique name.
2. Select one of the custom reports in the list and review filters.
NOTE: Refer to View and Search Collected Data for detailed instructions on how to apply filters
when searching audit data.
6. In the Specify a name for your custom report dialog, specify a name. Netwrix Auditor
automatically offers a previously used name so that this custom report will be overwritten. If you
want to save both searches, specify a unique name for a modified search.
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1. Navigate to Reports → Custom and select the report you want to subscribe to.
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6. Alerts
6. Alerts
If you want to be notified about suspicious activity, you can configure alerts that will be triggered by
specific events. Alerts are sent after the specified action has been detected. Alerts are helpful if you want
to be notified about actions critical to your organization security and have to mitigate risks once the
suspicious action occurs.
The example alert is triggered when a new user is created in the monitored domain.
To set up a response action, this account must also be a member of the local Administrators group on
Netwrix Auditor Server.
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6. Alerts
1. On the main Netwrix Auditor page, click the Alert settings link under the Configuration section on
the left:
NOTE: You can also create new alert directly from the interactive search results. Navigate to Tools
and select Create alert to add a new alert with the same set of filters as your search.
Option Description
General l Specify a name and enter the description for the new alert.
NOTE: Make sure that the Send alert when the action occurs option is
enabled. Otherwise, the new alert will be disabled.
l Apply tags—Create a set of tags to more efficiently identify and sort your
alerts. Select Edit under Apply tags to associate tags with your alert. Later,
you can quickly find an alert of interest using Filter by tags in the upper
part of the All Alerts window.
NOTE: To see a full list of alerts ever created in the product, navigate to
Settings → Tags.
Recipients Select alert recipients. Click Add Recipient and select alert delivery type:
NOTE: It is recommended to click Send Test Email. The system will send a
test message to the specified email address and inform you if any
problems are detected.
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Option Description
NOTE: Make sure that your carrier supports sms to email gateway
technology.
Filters Apply a set of filters to narrow events that trigger a new alert. Alerts use the
same interface and logic as search.
Refer to View and Search Collected Data for detailed instructions on how to
create and modify filters.
NOTE: The Filters section contains required fields highlighted with red.
Once you completed all filters, click Preview on the right pane to see search-
based list of events that will trigger your alert.
Thresholds If necessary, enable threshold to trigger the new alert. In this case, a single alert
will be sent instead of many alerts. This can be helpful when Netwrix Auditor
detects many activity records matching the filters you specified.
Slide the switch under the Send alert when the threshold is exceeded option
and configure the following:
NOTE: Only alerts grouped by the Who parameter can be included in the
Behavior Anomalies list. Mind that in this case, the product does
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6. Alerts
Option Description
not summarize risk scores and shows the value you associated with
this alert. This may significantly reduce risk score accuracy.
l Send alert for <...> activity records within <...> seconds — Select a
number of changes that occurred in a given period (in seconds).
For example, you want to receive an alert on suspicious activity. You select
"Action" in the Limit alerting to activity records with the same list and specify a
number of actions to be considered an unexpected behavior: 1000 changes in
60 seconds. When the selected threshold exceeded, an alert will be delivered to
the specified recipients: one for every 1000 removals in 60 seconds, one for
every 1000 failed removals in 60 seconds. So you can easily discover what is
going on in your IT infrastructure.
Risk Score l Slide the switch to On under Include this alert in Behavior Anomalies
assessment. See Behavior Anomalies for more information.
l Associate a risk score with the alert—Assign a risk score based on the
type of anomaly and the severity of the deviation from the normal
behavior. An action's risk score is a numerical value from 1 (Low) to 100
(High) that designates the level of risk with 100 being the riskiest and 1 the
least risky.
These are general guidelines you can adopt when setting a risk score:
l Low score — Assign to a repetitive action that does not occur too
often (e.g., rapid logons). Multiple occurrences of action sets may
indicate a potential in- house bad actor or account compromise.
Configure a threshold-based alert, email recipients are optional but
make sure to regularly review the Behavior Anomalies dashboard.
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Option Description
Response You can instruct Netwrix Auditor to perform a response action when the alert
Action occurs — for example, start an executable file (command, batch file, or other)
that will remediate the issue, or open a ticket with the help desk, and so on. For
that, you will need an executable file stored locally on the Netwrix Auditor
server. Slide the switch to turn the feature ON, then follow the steps described
in Configure a Response Action for Alert section.
NOTE: Starting with version 10, you can add any Netwrix Auditor elements (a dashboard, report, alert,
risk, etc.) to the Home screen to access them instantly. See Home Screen (Navigation) and
Customize Home screen for more information.
To... Do...
Enable / disable an 1. Select an alert from the list and enable it using the slider in the Mode
existing alert column.
2. Double-click the selected alert and specify alert recipients or set a risk
score want to include an alert in Behavior Anomalies assessment. You
can go on with a score suggested by Netwrix industry experts or fine-
tune it to fit your organization's priorities. Refer to Risk Score for
detailed instructions on how to configure scoring settings.
3. Review and update filters. For some alerts you should provide filter
values, such as group name or user.
Modify an existing l Select an alert from the list and click Edit.
alert
Create a new alert l Select an alert from the list and click Duplicate at the bottom of the
from existing window.
Remove an alert
l Select an alert from the list and click in the right pane.
Find an alert l Use the Filter by tags option to find an alert by tags associated with this
alert.
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6. Alerts
To... Do...
OR
l Use a search bar in the upper part of All Alerts window to find an alert
by its name or tag.
For that, configure the required settings in the Response Action tab of the alert properties.
1. Turn the switch On if you want a response action to be taken when the alert occurs.
2. In the Run field, specify the path to the executable file (.exe, .cmd, .bat; for .ps1 files see step 3
below). The file must be located on the machine where Netwrix Auditor server runs.
3. In the With parameters field, enter the parameters to be used by the executable file. Use space
character as a separator.
l To run .exe, .cmd and .bat files, you can enter the path to your command-line or batch file
directly in the Run field, for example:
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l To run .ps1 files, you will need to enter the path to powershell.exe and path to your script. For
example:
NOTE: Unless you select to Write data to CSV file, Netwrix Auditor will also pass the following
parameters to the command line:
l AlertID — alert ID
Selecting Write data to CSV file will change this behavior, as described Writing data to CSV
file section below.
4. In the Working directory field, specify path to the working directory of the executable file on
Netwrix Auditor server.
If you leave this field empty, then the path to the file specified in the Run field will be used as a
working directory. As shown in the example with the .ps file, this may be the system directory. So, to
avoid system directory cluttering, it is recommended not to leave the Working directory field empty
but to explicitly specify the directory where your executable file is located, or a dedicated directory
for that purpose. In the latter case, make sure the directory exists on Netwrix Auditor server.
5. Write data to CSV file — select this option if you want Netwrix Auditor to locate the activity records
associated with the alert, and write the record fields and their values in a structured way to a .csv
file. For each new alert being created, this option is selected by default, as well as for the predefined
alerts installed with Netwrix Auditor.
NOTE: After the upgrade, all alerts with previously configured response action will have this option
cleared.
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6. Limit row count in a file to <N> — limit the number of rows (activity records) to be written to a
single .csv file. Enter a value from 1 to 1000.
NOTE: Learn more about how these options work in Writing data to CSV file section.
7. By default, the executable file will be launched under the LocalSystem account. If you want to use
another account, select the Use custom credentials checkbox and specify user name and
password. Make sure this account has Log on as batch job privilege.
8. The resulting command line including executable file name and execution parameters will appear in
the Сommand line preview:
l If you selected to Write data to CSV file, the command line will include {CsvFile}, i.e. the file
path
l Alternatively, the command line will include {AlertID} and {RecordID}, i.e. related IDs
9. Test run — if you click this button, the executable file will be run with the specified parameters on
Netwrix Auditor server. This can be helpful, for example, if you want to ensure script operability
before the related alert is triggered.
NOTE: As there is no actual alert triggering in this case, sample alert ID and sample activity record ID will
be passed to the executable file. If you selected to write data to CSV file, a sample file will be
created and populated with these sample IDs.
To be able to perform the test run, current user account (logged on to Netwrix Auditor client) must have
local Administrator privileges on Netwrix Auditor server where the executable file is located.
After the test run, you will get a notification message with the exit code. Typical values are as follows:
It is strongly recommended to apply similar logic if you plan to use custom exit codes in your response
action script.
NOTE: Same exit codes will be returned by response action regular runs.
If the action is not a success (exit code is not 0), the program will try to perform response action
again (up to 200 times) with increasing time interval.
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6. Alerts
Starting with Netwrix Auditor 9.8, to pass certain activity record fields to the executable file, you can
instruct the program to write the fields and their values in a structured way to a CSV file.
The number of activity records retrieved per every response action launch will be only limited by user
(see below for details). If the number of records associated with the alert exceeds this limit, the program
will create multiple CSV files, storing data in chunks.
For example, if there are 50 records associated with the alert (e.g., “Scanning threat is detected on network
device” alert), and the number of records for one CSV is set to 10, the program will create 5 CSV files, with
10 records in each chunk. Also notice that the response action will be launched once for every such
chunk (5 times in this example), and will retrieve multiple activity records per launch (not more than the
specified limit, i.e. 10 records in this example).
A CSV file is named using the timestamp and GUID and stored in the subfolder of Netwrix Auditor
working folder (by default, %ProgramData%\Netwrix Auditor\AuditCore\AuditArchive\AlertsToolLauncher\Csv).
Note that a CSV file will exist only while the executable file is running – after the execution is completed,
the CSV file will be deleted. So if you plan, for example, to obtain some data from that file for further
processing, you may need to copy it to a permanent location in a timely manner, e.g., using a script.
To view the dashboard, on the main Netwrix Auditor page, click the Alerts tile.
l Alerts triggered – shows amount of alerts triggered for the last 7 days (by default). Use this tile to
inspect the trend.
l Top 5 alerts by count – shows most recently triggered alerts for the selected time period (7 days by
default).
l Risk score by top 5 users – shows potentially harmful users for the selected time period (7 days by
default). Clicking the tile opens the Behavior Anomalies dashboard. See Behavior Anomalies for
more information.
l Alerts timeline – shows the number of alerts triggered at the specific day.
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6. Alerts
Clicking any tile except for Risk score by top 5 users drills down to the Alert history dashboard that
provides users with the detailed information about the latest alerts triggered in their IT infrastructure
enriched with the actionable chart and timeline.
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6. Alerts
Review detailed information about the triggered alerts and change anomaly status. Review the following
for more information: Process Anomalies and Reduce Risk Score.
On the Details pane, you can review alert details and manage your alerts:
l Show reviewed alerts – click to view all alerts you have already reviewed.
l Mark all as reviewed – click to mard all alerts in the list as reviewed. Netwrix recommends doing
this only if you are completely sure that there are no critical alerts in your infrastructure.
l Edit alerts settings – click to modify settings of the selected alert. See Create Alerts for more
information.
l Show activity record in new window – click to view more information about the activity record that
triggered an alert. See Activity Records Statistics for more information.
You can also refresh the alerts information by clicking the Refresh button at the bottom or go to the
general alerts settings page clicking the Alert settings. See Manage Alerts for more information.
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Risk assessment dashboard can be accessed by clicking the Risk assessment tile in the main window of
Netwrix Auditor. For details about using the dashboard, see IT Risk Assessment Dashboard.
For details about metrics calculation, see How Risk Levels Are Estimated .
Looking for real-life use cases and walk through examples? Check out Netwrix training materials. Go
theIIT Risk Assessment videos.
Users and Computers User accounts with "Password never expires" AD domain
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Site collections with the "Get a link" feature enabled SharePoint farm
Also, consider that all risk metrics and related reports require state-in-time data to be collected. You can
select the relevant option when creating a new monitoring plan, as described in the Settings for Data
Collection section. For the exising plan, refer to the procedure below.
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1. Select the monitoring plan you need and click the Edit button.
2. In the right pane of the dialog displayed, select Edit settings from the Monitoring plan section.
3. Go to the Audit Database section and make sure that Disable security intelligence ... checkbox is
cleared. This will instruct Netwrix Auditor to store data to both Long-Term Archive and audit
database:
4. Save the settings and return to the window with the monitoring plan details. Make sure you have at
least one monitored item in the plan. If necessary, add an item.
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5. Select the data source you need (for example, Active Directory) and click Edit data source from the
Data source section on the right.
a. Monitor this data source and collect activity data is switched ON.
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NOTE: Starting with version 10, you can add any Netwrix Auditor elements (a dashboard, report, alert,
risk, etc.) to the Home screen to access them instantly. See Home Screen (Navigation) and
Customize Home screen for more information.
l Permissions
l Data
l Infrastructure
Within each category there are several key metrics identified by Netwrix industry experts who also
suggested formulas for calculating metrics values. Risks are assessed against these metrics and displayed
with the color indicators in accordance with the level:
l High — red
l Medium — yellow
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l Low — green
After reviewing general risks assessment results in each category, you can drill-down to details covered in
the underlying report— for that, double-click the selected metric or use the View Report button.
1. In the dashboard pane, select the metric you need and in the Actions section on the right click
Modify thresholds.
2. In the dialog displayed, specify new threshold values for risk levels.
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Also, for several metrics the Customize risk indicators command is available.
File and folder names containing sensitive data Edit the list of words you consider to be
indicators of sensitive content if detected in
the file or folder name.
Potentially harmful files on file shares Edit the list of extensions you consider to be
indicators of potentially harmful files detected
in the file share.
Servers with inappropriate operating systems Edit the whitelist of permitted OS versions. Any
other OS version will be considered a risk
factor.
Servers with unauthorized antivirus software Edit the whitelist of permitted antivirus tools.
Any other antivirus will be considered a risk
factor.
Administrative group membership sprawl Edit the whitelist of permitted accounts that
can be the members of local administrative
groups. Any other account will be considered a
risk factor.
NOTE: New settings will be applied/risk level thresholds will be refreshed after the next data collection
session.
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You can also save current results to a PDF file, using the Export button in the dashboard window.
l Permissions
l Data
l Infrastructure
Within each area, Netwrix Auditor industry experts identified risk categories and suggested guidelines for
them. For example, if the number of administrative accounts in your organization is less than 2%, the risk
should be considered insufficient. If the value is between 2% and 3%, the risk is moderate, while any
value that exceeds 3% should be considered a high risk. These guidelines are based on security best
practices and analytical data.
The product compares your environment configuration against these metrics and assigns a risk level to
each category. The risk levels in each category determine the overall risk level for the area you review.
The following risk levels are used:
Medium Yellow Proactively mitigate risks and adjust your workflows before a
breach occurs.
Calculation formulas for each metric are provided in the table below.
NOTE: The following signs are used to define risk level intervals and threshold values:
l = —Equals
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l [ ] —Inclusive interval
l ( ) —Exclusive interval
l [ ) or ( ] —Half-closed interval, where 1 value is inclusive and the other is exclusive or vice versa.
l ≥ 3% — High
Servers with Guest Number of servers with enabled Guest l 0%— Low
account enabled* account / Overall number of servers (%)
l (0% - 1%] — Medium
l >1% — High
Servers that have local Servers that have local user accounts with l 0% — Low
user accounts with Password never expires / Overall number
l >0% — High
"Password never of servers (%)
expires"*
Permissions
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l ≥ 3% — High
Site collections with the Number of site collections with the Get a l ≤30% — Low
"Get a link" feature link feature enabled / Total number of site
l (30% - 60%) —
enabled collections (%)
Medium
l ≥60% — High
Sites with the Number of sites with the Anonymous l ≤30% — Low
"Anonymous access" access feature enabled / Total number of
l (30% - 60%) —
feature enabled sites (%)
Medium
l ≥60% — High
Site collections with Number of site collections with broken l ≤30% — Low
broken inheritance inheritance / Total number of site collections
l (30% - 60%) —
(%)
Medium
l ≥60% — High
Data
Files and folders Files and folders shared with Everyone l ≤ 1% — Low
accessible by Everyone security group /Overall number of shared
l (1% – 5%) — Medium
folders (%)
l ≥ 5% — High
File and folder names Number of files and folders with names that l 0 — Low
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l > 1 — High
Documents and list Number of documents and list items shared l ≤25% — Low
items accessible by with the Everyone and Authenticated Users
l (25% - 50%) —
Everyone and groups / Total number of documents and list
Medium
Authenticated Users items (%)
l ≥50% — High
Infrastructure
* -here the Overall number of servers means the number of Windows servers for which data collection was
a success. That said, this count may vary across the risks. In such a case, it is recommended to examine
Netwrix Auditor health log and omit lists.
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8. Behavior Anomalies
8. Behavior Anomalies
Netwrix Auditor enables you to detect behavior anomalies in your IT environment, such as activity surges
or mass deletions of archived data. As you investigate suspicious activity and review incidents, you can
identify intruders or in-house bad actors who keep violating your company's security policies.
The behavior anomalies assessment extends the alerting functionality and provides both a high-level
visualization and a detailed history of malicious user activity. While alerts notify you on a single or
repetitive action almost immediately, the Behavior Anomalies dashboard accumulates this data over time
and thus gives you the bird's eye view of activity patterns. With Behavior Anomalies, you can step beyond
individual actions and investigate more complicated user behavior scenarios that might otherwise stay
concealed for a long time.
On a high level, your behavior anomalies assessment workflow can be described as follows:
1. You create alerts on threat patterns specific to your company. You include these alerts in Behavior
Anomalies assessment and associate a risk score with each alert. The score, that is between 1 and
100 points, reflects how critical the action is for your organization. Refer to Risk Score for detailed
instructions on how to set a risk score for an alert.
Although Netwrix industry experts suggest risk scores for alerts that are provided out-of-the-box,
you can easily tailor these scores to your organization needs and priorities. You can always adjust
risk scores over time as you become more aware of behavior patterns and anomalous actions in
your environment.
2. Each action that provokes an alert is treated as anomaly. Once the anomaly is detected, it appears
on a dashboard's timeline and its risk score is added to the user's total score.
3. Every now and then, you review the Behavior Anomalies dashboard—the risk score timeline with
anomaly surges, and the most active users. The general rule of thumb is: the more risk score points
the user has the more he or she merits your attention. See Review Behavior Anomalies Dashboard
for more information.
4. To learn more about user activity, you can drill-down to a user profile to review all alerts provoked
by this user. As you review anomalies and mitigate risks, the user's total score reduces. See Review
User Profiles and Process Anomalies for more information.
The purpose of the dashboard is to keep risks low and help you spot and address issues as they occur.
The risk score assigned to a user does not qualify him or her as a bad actor but rather brings your
attention to behavior patterns. Depending on the role in your organization, users might have different
safe levels while you should make your priority to review the anomalies on time, stay focused, and
proactively mitigate risks.
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8. Behavior Anomalies
NOTE: Starting with version 10, you can add any Netwrix Auditor elements (a dashboard, report, alert,
risk, etc.) to the Home screen to access them instantly. See Home Screen (Navigation) and
Customize Home screen for more information.
l The Risk score timeline that helps you review anomaly surges over time.
l The Risk score by top five users chart that helps you identify the most active users. To see the
chart, click the pie chart icon in the upper left corner of the page.
l The user list with all users who provoked alerts and their total risk scores.
Once you reviewed the general anomaly trend and identified users that merit your special attention,
review their profiles and process anomalies. Click View Profile next to a user name to dive into user
activity and investigate each action in details. See Review User Profiles and Process Anomalies for more
information.
See Review User Profiles and Process Anomalies for more information.
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8. Behavior Anomalies
l On the Behavior Anomalies assessment dashboard, locate a user and click View Profile next to his
or her name.
l User data with the name and the total risk score. Click Show user activity below the total risk score,
to launch the Interactive Search in a new window. Use it to see all user actions, including those that
were not treated as anomalies.
l The Risk score timeline that demonstrates anomalous activity surges. Modify the timeframe to
narrow down the results.
l The Risk score by top five alerts chart that outlines the most frequent anomalies provoked by
user. To see the chart, click the pie chart icon in the upper left corner of the page.
l The anomalies list displays details for each anomaly: the alert that was triggered, the date and time,
the risk score and anomaly status.
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8. Behavior Anomalies
Double-click an entry to see more details: who did what, when and where the action was made, etc.
Navigate to Linked actions and click Show user activity or Show this activity record to invoke
Interactive Search and see all user actions or a specific action correspondingly.
NOTE: Netwrix Auditor shows only the top 2,000 anomalies. Modify the timeframe or hide reviewed
anomalies, and then click Refresh to see more anomalies.
1. Specify an anomaly from the list and click the Active link in the Status column.
2. In the Change Status dialog, set the status to "reviewed" and provide a justification.
NOTE: You can add comments without changing a status. This might be helpful if the anomaly
remains active for a long period of time and you need even more time to examine it closely.
Once the anomaly is reviewed, it disappears from the timeline and chart, and its associated risk score is
taken from user's total score. The reviewed anomalies supplement the status with the reviewer name
and date (e.g., Reviewed by CORP\Administrator (10/02/2017 10:12:03 AM)).
You can always revert changes and assign the Active status back.
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8. Behavior Anomalies
In this case, all anomalies that are currently in view will be set to "reviewed". Perform this operation only
with a proper justification. Since Netwrix Auditor shows only the top 2,000 anomalies, make sure to click
Refresh to check if there are more anomalies to be reviewed.
NOTE: The anomalies that are excluded from view by filters are not affected by the Mark all as reviewed
action. For more information about filters, see Customize Anomalies List.
Click Customize view and clear the checkboxes next to alert names, if you do not want to see anomalies
associated with them.
When you hide an alert from view, its associated anomalies will no longer be displayed on a timeline,
chart, or in the list but the user total score will remain unchanged. Note that hidden anomalies cannot be
reviewed in bulk with the Mark all as reviewed action.
Hide reviewed anomalies enables you to modify the anomalies list so that you can focus on active
anomalies only. To see reviewed anomalies, click Show reviewed anomalies.
l The user has a high score and keeps provoking same alerts almost every day.
Drill-down to the user profile and then click Show user activity. Review user actions and compare
them to his or her job responsibilities. Does the user seem trustworthy? Are there any rights
elevation or suspicious access attempts?
Try to review user tasks—you may find out that the anomaly the user keeps provoking is a genuine
part of his or her daily routine. For example, the office staff should not reset passwords for other
accounts while this is a basic task for a system administrator. In this case, review your alert settings
and exclude the user from the alert filters.
Probably, you have configured too many alerts that turn behavior anomalies assessment into mess.
It takes some time to learn what matters most to your organization and get accustomed to setting
proper risk scores. Try to review your scoring settings regularly and adjust them when necessary.
Anyone can forget a password or accidentally try to access some data in a wrong folder. Such users
are not subject to immediate prosecution unless they do not provoke repetitive alerts. The best
practice is to review user profile after some time and check if there are any threat patterns in user
behavior.
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9. Subscriptions
9. Subscriptions
Subscriptions enable you to schedule email delivery of a variety of reports or set of specific search
criteria. Subscriptions are helpful if you are a rare guest of Netwrix Auditor and you only need to get
statistics based on individual criteria. For example, an IT manager can easily provide auditors with weekly
reports to prove compliance with regulations.
You can configure subscriptions to reports (including dashboards) risk assessment overview and
interactive search.
NOTE: Starting with version 10, you can add any Netwrix Auditor elements (a dashboard, report, alert,
risk, etc.) to the Home screen to access them instantly. See Home Screen (Navigation) and
Customize Home screen for more information.
l Predefined change reports to monitor important cases for all data sources.
l Predefined User Behavior and Blind Spot Analysis report pack with complex logic to identify
vulnerabilities (e.g., data access, suspicious files, etc.).
l Flexible set of filters to modify search for your business use and create another subscription based
on the existing one.
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9. Subscriptions
l Risk assessment overview based on the latest state-in-time data to monitor the state of your Active
Directory users and computers, as well as files and folders and other data at a specific moment.
l Automatically calculated metrics to identify risks and potential vulnerabilities (sensitive data,
malicious files, etc.).
l Filters for monitoring plans and risk categories to receive exactly the data you need.
l History option to verify that the subscription was configured properly and delivered successfully.
l On-demand delivery (Run Now) to send the subscription to a recipient at any moment.
NOTE: Subscription emails may vary slightly depending on the file delivery method and subscription type.
l Refer to Create Subscriptions for detailed instructions on how to create new subscriptions.
l Refer to Review and Manage Subscriptions for detailed instructions on how to manage
subscriptions.
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9. Subscriptions
To... Do...
Subscribe to a report On the main Netwrix Auditor page, navigate to Reports. Specify the
report that you want to subscribe to and click Subscribe.
Subscribe to Behavior On the main Netwrix Auditor page, navigate to Behavior anomalies,
anomalies dashboard then in the dashboard window click Subscribe.
report
Subscribe to search 1. Navigate to Search and set appropriate search criteria. See Use
Filters (Simple Mode) for more information. Click Search.
Subscribe to risk On the main Netwrix Auditor page, navigate to Risk assessment and
assessment overview in the dashboard window click Subscribe.
Option Description
General
Send empty Slide the switch to Yes if you want to receive a report even if no
subscriptions when no changes occurred.
activity occurred
Specify delivery options l File format—Configure reports to be delivered as the pdf or csv
files for search subscriptions; and pdf, docx, csv or xls files for
report subscriptions.
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9. Subscriptions
Option Description
Other tabs
Recipients Shows the number of recipients selected and allows specifying emails
where reports are to be sent.
Expand the Recipients list and click Add to add more recipients.
Schedule Allows specifying report delivery schedule (daily, certain days of week,
a certain day of a certain month).
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9. Subscriptions
Option Description
assessment.
To... Do...
Browse subscriptions Type the target subscription name in the search bar in the upper part
of the Subscriptions window and click the Search icon to review
results.
Enable or disable Pick a subscription and select On or Off in the Mode column.
subscriptions
Modify subscriptions Select the subscription that you want to modify and click Edit at the
bottom of the Subscriptions window. Update the subscription and
save your changes.
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9. Subscriptions
To... Do...
Remove subscriptions
Click icon next to the selected subscription.
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Index
I
A
Intelligence
Alerts 68, 72
Enterprise Overview 50
Apply tags 69
Reports 46
Configure 68
Search 30
Predefined alerts 72
L
Risk score 71
Launch 17
Search by tag 72
Licensing
Threshold-based alerts 70
Product editions 12
B
O
Baselines 58
Overview 7
Behavior Anomalies
R
Concept 90
Reports
Customize view 94
Baselines 58
Dashboard 90
Change management 49
Process anomalies 93
Change reports 49, 54
Timeline 90
Change Review Status reports 49
User profile 92
Changes with video 49
Browse audit data 30
Compliance 64
C
Custom 65
Custom reports 65
Dashboards 49
D
Filtering 48
Dashboard 86
How to find 46
Diagrams 50
Organization Level reports 49, 53
E
Overview diagrams 50
Enterprise Overview 50
Overview reports 49
F
Reports for change management 61
Free Community Edition 12
Reports with video 63
SSRS-based Reports 46
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Index
Subscriptions 95
Response action 73
Overview 79, 86
Saved searches 65
Search
Advanced 36
Browse data 30
Columns 36
Condition 40
Export data 44
Filters 33
More filters 36
Save as report 65
Subscribe 95
Subscriptions 95
Create 96
Manage 99
Tags
Apply to alerts 69
Windows Server
Baseline reports 58
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