Database auditing is a crucial task that helps organizations improve their operations, identify areas for improvement, and ensure compliance with industry regulations. By logging events and saving them as audit files, organizations can review and analyze the data to gain valuable insights. In this article, we will explore the key concepts and components of database auditing in SQL Server.

Why is Database Auditing Important?

Database security is a top priority for organizations, as data breaches can have severe consequences. It is estimated that 48% of data breaches occur due to the abuse of privileges. With databases containing sensitive and confidential information, granting access to employees, contractors, and third-party tools increases the risk of unauthorized access and potential threats.

Components of Database Auditing

There are several components involved in database auditing:

• Audit access and authentication: This component focuses on understanding the core security design and gathering details about who accessed the systems, when, and how.
• Audit user and administrator: This component lists the activities performed in the database by application users and administrators.
• Monitor security activity: This component identifies and flags any suspicious or abnormal access to sensitive data or critical systems.
• Database audit vulnerability and threat detection: This component detects vulnerabilities in the database and monitors users attempting to exploit the database.
• Change Auditing: This component establishes a baseline policy for the database and tracks any deviations from that baseline, including configuration changes, schema changes, user access, privileges elevation, and file structure validation.

SQL Server Audit Features

SQL Server provides various features for auditing, including:

• Triggers: Triggers can be used to audit changes to the database by recording every change to a separate audit or history table.
• SQL Profiler: SQL Profiler is a GUI tool that captures select event-related information for troubleshooting and auditing purposes.
• Session (DMV): This method involves querying the system Dynamic Management Views to capture session data, providing a simple and straightforward approach to auditing.
• C2 Audit: C2 auditing assigns an audit ID to each group of related processes and logs certain system calls performed by every process.
• Common Criteria Compliance: This compliance standard also uses SQL Trace to capture audit events, but it requires a reboot and can impact server performance.
• Extended Events: Extended Events is a lightweight event monitoring system available since SQL Server 2008, offering a preferred mechanism for gathering query performance metrics.
• SQL Server Audit – Server & Database Level: SQL Server Audit allows you to create audits at the server or database level, specifying what events to track and where to store the audit results.

Azure SQL Database Auditing

Azure SQL Database provides several options for auditing:

• Temporal Tables: Temporal tables combine the features of Change Data Capture (CDC) and Change Tracking (CT) to track changes to data over time.
• Azure SQL Managed Instance: Azure SQL Managed Instance supports CDC, allowing you to track changes made to user tables in the database.
• Azure SQL Database Audit Security Feature: Azure SQL Database auditing tracks database-related events and logs them into files using Azure Storage account, Log Analytics OMS workspace, or Event Hub.
• Extended Events: Extended Events can be used to monitor various events in Azure SQL Database, providing valuable insights into database activity.

Conclusion

Database auditing is a complex process that plays a crucial role in ensuring data security, compliance, and identifying areas for improvement. By understanding the key concepts and utilizing the available features in SQL Server and Azure SQL Database, organizations can effectively track and monitor database activity. Whether it’s using triggers, SQL Profiler, or Extended Events, choosing the right auditing method depends on the specific requirements and objectives of the organization.

What is your preferred method for database auditing? Share your thoughts in the comments below!