Monitoring Active Directory Domain Join Events

Question

An Active Directory forest contains three child domains, and there is a requirement to receive alerts when a domain join is triggered as part of security controls.

What are the best practices for monitoring these events effectively?

Answer 1

Hi,

To effectively monitor Active Directory domain join events, consider the following best practices:

• Set Up Audit Policies: Implement audit policies specifically for monitoring domain join events. This includes enabling the "Audit Directory Service Access" and "Audit Account Management" policies. These policies will help track when computers are added to the domain.
• Use Event IDs: Focus on specific event IDs related to domain joins. For instance, Event ID 4756 (A member was added to a security-enabled universal group) and Event ID 4741 (A computer account was created) are critical for identifying domain join activities.
• Centralized Logging: Use a centralized logging solution to aggregate logs from all child domains. This will help in monitoring and analyzing events across the entire Active Directory forest.
• Set Alerts: Configure alerts for the identified event IDs. This ensures that any domain join activity triggers a notification, allowing for immediate investigation of potentially unauthorized actions.

By implementing these practices, you can enhance your monitoring of domain join events and improve your security posture.

Answer 2

Hi Marcel,

that should be an easy one:

• First of you need your AD Audting Events enabled on Your DCs. there are Tons of sources out there, which explain how to enable AD Auduting for this particular use case.
• After you know the exact Event that is generated, you simply need to create an alert generating rule, which is targeted at your domain controllers and looks for that specific event.

You can find some additional info here:

Monitoring WHEN A COMPUTER JOINS THE active directory DOMAIN? (on Reddit)

I hope I was able to help.

Regards,

Stoyan