Object Access Event: 4661

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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.

Object Access » Object Access Event: 4661

Event ID 4661 – A Handle To An Object Was Requested

Event ID 4661
Category Object Access: Directory Service Access, SAM
Type Success Audit; Failure Audit
Description A handle to an object was requested.

If a handle has been requested for either a Security Account Manager (SAM) object or an Active Directory object, then event 4661 is logged. A failure event is generated if the access is denied. On the other hand, this event is generated for Success status only if auditing is enabled to do so in the Audit Handle Manipulation subcategory.

This log data provides the following information:

  • Security ID
  • Account Name
  • Account Domain
  • Logon ID
  • Object Server
  • Object Type
  • Object Name
  • Handle ID
  • Process ID
  • Process Name
  • Transaction ID
  • Accesses
  • Access Mask
  • Privileges Used for Access Check

Why does event ID 4661 need to be monitored?

  • To monitor if an operation was performed on an object
  • To prevent privilege abuse
  • To detect abnormal and potentially malicious activity
  • To ensure compliance with regulatory mandates

Pro Tip:

ADAudit Plus provides real-time pre-configured reports and auditing of the changes along with alerts within a Domain & OU. The advanced Group Policy settings real-time audit reports provide detailed information about object related events.

Event 4661 applies to the following operating systems:

  • Windows 2008 R2 and 7
  • Windows 2012 R2 and 8.1
  • Windows 2016 and 10

Corresponding event in Windows 2003 and before: 565