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Manage auditing and security log

  • Article

Applies to

  • Windows 11
  • Windows 10

Describes the best practices, location, values, policy management, and security considerations for the Manage auditing and security log security policy setting.

Reference

This policy setting determines which users can specify object access audit options for individual resources such as files, Active Directory objects, and registry keys. These objects specify their system access control lists (SACL). A user who is assigned this user right can also view and clear the Security log in Event Viewer. For more information about the Object Access audit policy, see Audit object access.

Constant: SeSecurityPrivilege

Possible values

  • User-defined list of accounts
  • Administrators
  • Not Defined

Best practices

  1. Before removing this right from a group, investigate whether applications are dependent on this right.
  2. Generally, assigning this user right to groups other than Administrators isn't necessary.

Location

Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\User Rights Assignment

Default values

By default this setting is Administrators on domain controllers and on stand-alone servers.

The following table lists the actual and effective default policy values for the most recent supported versions of Windows. Default values are also listed on the policy’s property page.

Server type or GPO Default value
Default Domain Policy Not defined
Default Domain Controller Policy Administrators
Stand-Alone Server Default Settings Administrators
Domain Controller Effective Default Settings Administrators
Member Server Effective Default Settings Administrators
Client Computer Effective Default Settings Administrators

Policy management

This section describes features, tools, and guidance to help you manage this policy.

A restart of the computer isn't required for this policy setting to be effective.

Any change to the user rights assignment for an account becomes effective the next time the owner of the account logs on.

Audits for object access aren't performed unless you enable them by using the Local Group Policy Editor, the Group Policy Management Console (GPMC), or the Auditpol command-line tool.

For more information about the Object Access audit policy, see Audit object access.

Group Policy

Settings are applied in the following order through a Group Policy Object (GPO), which will overwrite settings on the local computer at the next Group Policy update:

  1. Local policy settings
  2. Site policy settings
  3. Domain policy settings
  4. OU policy settings

When a local setting is greyed out, it indicates that a GPO currently controls that setting.

Security considerations

This section describes how an attacker might exploit a feature or its configuration, how to implement the countermeasure, and the possible negative consequences of countermeasure implementation.

Vulnerability

Anyone with the Manage auditing and security log user right can clear the Security log to erase important evidence of unauthorized activity.

Countermeasure

Ensure that only the local Administrators group has the Manage auditing and security log user right.

Potential impact

Restricting the Manage auditing and security log user right to the local Administrators group is the default configuration.

Warning:  If groups other than the local Administrators group have been assigned this user right, removing this user right might cause performance issues with other applications. Before removing this right from a group, investigate whether applications are dependent on this right.