SQL Server must produce Trace or Audit records containing sufficient information to establish where the events occurred.

From MS SQL Server 2014 Instance Security Technical Implementation Guide

Part of SRG-APP-000097-DB-000041

Associated with: CCI-000132

SV-82265r2_rule SQL Server must produce Trace or Audit records containing sufficient information to establish where the events occurred.

Vulnerability discussion

Information system auditing capability is critical for accurate forensic analysis. Audit record content which may be necessary to satisfy the requirement of this control includes, but is not limited to: time stamps, source and destination addresses, user/process identifiers, event descriptions, success/fail indications, file names involved, and access control or flow control rules invoked.SQL Server is capable of a range of actions on data stored within the database. It is important, for accurate forensic analysis, to know exactly where actions were performed. This requires specific information regarding the event location an audit record is referring to. If event location information is not recorded and stored with the audit record, the record itself is of very limited use.An event location can be a database instance, table, column, row, etc. Without sufficient information establishing where the audit events occurred, investigation into the cause of events is severely hindered. If SQL Server Audit is enabled, SQL Server does capture the event location-specific information in all audit records.Use of SQL Server Audit is recommended. All features of SQL Server Audit are available in the Enterprise and Developer editions of SQL Server 2014. It is not available at the database level in other editions. For this or legacy reasons, the instance may be using SQL Server Trace for auditing, which remains an acceptable solution for the time being. Note, however, that Microsoft intends to remove most aspects of Trace at some point after SQL Server 2016.

Check content

If neither SQL Server Audit nor SQL Server Trace is in use for audit purposes, this is a finding. If SQL Server Audit is in use, the server instance, database, schema, and object names are each automatically captured when applicable; this is not a finding. If SQL Server Trace is in use for audit purposes, verify that for all events it captures the server name, database name, object type, object name and object owner (each where relevant). From the query prompt: SELECT * FROM sys.traces; All currently defined traces for the SQL server instance will be listed. If no traces are returned, this is a finding. Determine the trace(s) being used for the auditing requirement. In the following, replace # with a trace ID being used for the auditing requirements. From the query prompt: WITH EC AS (SELECT eventid, columnid FROM sys.fn_trace_geteventinfo(#)), E AS (SELECT DISTINCT eventid FROM EC) SELECT E.eventid, CASE WHEN EC26.columnid IS NULL THEN 'Server Name (26) missing' ELSE '26 OK' END AS field26, CASE WHEN EC35.columnid IS NULL THEN 'Database Name (35) missing' ELSE '35 OK' END AS field35, CASE WHEN EC28.columnid IS NULL THEN 'Object Type (28) missing' ELSE '28 OK' END AS field28, CASE WHEN EC34.columnid IS NULL THEN 'Object Name (34) missing' ELSE '34 OK' END AS field34, CASE WHEN EC37.columnid IS NULL THEN 'Object Owner (37) missing' ELSE '34 OK' END AS field37 FROM E E LEFT OUTER JOIN EC EC26 ON EC26.eventid = E.eventid AND EC26.columnid = 26 LEFT OUTER JOIN EC EC35 ON EC35.eventid = E.eventid AND EC35.columnid = 35 LEFT OUTER JOIN EC EC28 ON EC28.eventid = E.eventid AND EC28.columnid = 28 LEFT OUTER JOIN EC EC34 ON EC34.eventid = E.eventid AND EC34.columnid = 34 LEFT OUTER JOIN EC EC37 ON EC37.eventid = E.eventid AND EC37.columnid = 37 WHERE EC26.columnid IS NULL OR EC35.columnid IS NULL OR EC28.columnid IS NULL OR EC34.columnid IS NULL OR EC37.columnid IS NULL; If the resulting list indicates any field specifications are missing, this is a finding.

Fix text

Design and deploy a SQL Server Audit or Trace that captures the server name, database name, object type, object name and object owner (each where relevant) for all auditable events. The script provided in the supplemental file Trace.sql can be used to create a trace. The script provided in the supplemental file Audit.sql can be used to create an audit..

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