Account Management Event: 659

Active Directory Auditing Tool

The Who, Where and When information is very important for an administrator to have complete knowledge of all activities that occur on their Active Directory. This helps them identify any desired / undesired activity happening. ADAudit Plus assists an administrator with this information in the form of reports. In real-time, ensure critical resources in the network like the Domain Controllers are audited, monitored and reported with the entire information on AD objects - Users, Groups, GPO, Computer, OU, DNS, AD Schema and Configuration changes with 200+ detailed event specific GUI reports and email alerts.

Account Management » Event ID 659 - Security Enabled Universal Group Changed

Event ID 659 - Security Enabled Universal Group Changed

Event ID 659
Category Account management
Sub category Security group management
Description A security-enabled universal group was changed

When a universal security group is changed in Active Directory, event ID 659 gets logged.

This log data gives the following information:

Subject: User who performed the action Security ID
Account Name
Account Domain
Logon ID
Group: Changed universal security group  Security ID
Group Name
Group Domain
Attributes SAM Account Name
SID History
Additional Information Privileges

Why event ID 659 needs to be monitored?

  • Prevention of privilege abuse
  • Detection of potential malicious activity
  • Operational purposes like getting information on user activity like user attendance, peak logon times, etc.
  • Compliance mandates

Pro tip:

ADAudit Plus audits, reports, and alerts group management actions performed on distribution and security groups making Active Directory auditing much easier. 

Event 659 applies to the following operating systems:

  • Windows Server 2000
  • Windows 2003 and XP

Corresponding event ID for 659 in Windows Server 2008 and Vista is 4755

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