Planning and implementing a comprehensive SQL Server auditing and compliance strategy involves several steps, including:
1. Identify regulatory requirements: The first step is to identify the regulatory requirements that apply to your organization, such as HIPAA, PCI DSS, or SOX. Each regulation may have specific requirements for auditing and compliance, so it is important to understand them.
2. Define scope: Determine the scope of your auditing and compliance strategy. Which databases, tables or columns will be audited? Which users or groups will be monitored? Which events will be audited? Etc.
3. Determine the auditing level: SQL server has three different auditing levels: server, database and object level. Each level captures information differently and has its own configuration. Define the level that suits your organization’s needs, and configure it accordingly.
4. Set up auditing: Configure auditing for SQL Server, including creating audit specifications, audit objects, and audit actions. SQL Server provides a variety of audit actions, including login/logout events, object access, and administrative actions. A complete list of available audit actions can be found in the SQL documentation.
5. Monitor and analyze auditing data: Once auditing is configured, it is important to monitor and analyze the data generated by the audit. This will enable the organization to identify potential security breaches, policy violations, or other issues that require action. SQL Server provides several tools for analyzing audit data, including the SQL Server Audit Log Viewer, SQL Audit Log Reports or any other third-party tool.
6. Develop response procedures: The organization should have procedures for responding to audit findings. This includes notifying appropriate parties, conducting investigations, and taking remedial actions, if necessary.
7. Review and update the strategy periodically: As regulations change and technology advances, it is important to review and update the auditing and compliance strategy periodically to ensure that it remains effective.
To help understand the steps needed to plan and configure a comprehensive SQL Server auditing and compliance strategy, here is an example on how you can compose an audit specification within a database:
CREATE SERVER AUDIT [Audit_Name]
TO FILE (
FILEPATH = 'C:Audits'
,MAXSIZE = 50 MB
)
WITH (
QUEUE_DELAY = 1000
,ON_FAILURE = CONTINUE
);
CREATE DATABASE AUDIT SPECIFICATION [Audit_Spec_Name]
FOR SERVER AUDIT [Audit_Name]
ADD (SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, EXECUTE ON OBJECT::[dbo].[Table_Name])
WITH (STATE = ON);This script creates a server audit and a database audit specification based on the requirements and scope of the organization. The audit specification specifies which actions should be audited on which objects, and the server audit provides where the audit data should be collected.