How to secure Synology NAS

Synology NAS servers function as file servers for a lot of organizations. File servers typically contain a lot of the sensitive company data. While most companies set permissions on file access, that does not completely mitigate the risk of a malicious agent accessing the sensitive information. For example, a malicious insider or outsider could break into the admin account and access the sensitive files. This can be prevented if the file servers are continually monitored for any suspicious activity. While native tools on Synology NAS can be used to check all the event logs on the device, an application like ADAudit Plus offers a simpler and more effective auditing solution.

ADAudit Plus, a real-time Active Directory auditing and reporting tool, processes the logs from servers such as Synology NAS to generate comprehensive and user-friendly reports. This tool audits all of the network entities such as users, files, servers, computers and instantly generates reports on all the significant events on the network. There are over 200 pre-packaged audit reports on ADAudit Plus.

Here is a comparison between monitoring Synology NAS using native tools and ADAudit Plus:

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With Native AD Auditing
With ADAudit Plus

For Synology NAS to forward logs to ADAudit Plus, follow these steps:
1. Open Synology DiskStation Manager on the Synology device and click on Control Panel. Navigate to File Services and Enable Transfer Log.
2. Then, open Log Center and select Log Sending and click on Send logs to a Syslog server. Enter the name of the target server and the port number that ADAudit Plus is listening to. Click Apply and you are done.
Now, you can simply open ADAudit Plus console and navigate to File Audit > Member Servers > Synology NAS to get multiple reports on file modifications, deletions and so on. Here is a sample report:

There are two sources of logs in Synology NAS, both of which display different logs. To keep the NAS secure, both of these logs have to be regularly checked for any suspicious activity. These are the two sources:
1. Log Center :
Set up auditing for different events by navigating to the Settings option in their respective applications on the Synology interface. For example, open File Station to set up auditing for file access.
To view the logs, open Package center and download and install the Log Center package. Log Center gives the general details of the events connected to the DSM such as user activities (file access, addition, deletion and so on) from the different networked devices.
2. Support Center:
Open Support Center in the NAS device and navigate to Support Services > Log generation. The Support Center logs give more information about the system itself, its performance and so on. Select the logs you need from the options and click Generate Logs tab to get a zip file of the relevant logs.
Once Synology NAS is configured on the ADAudit Plus console, it can audit the NAS device and generate all the different reports mentioned above.

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How to secure Synology NAS

With Native AD Auditing

With ADAudit Plus

1. Log Center :

2. Support Center:

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