Butterfield Bank takes privileged user monitoring to new heights with ADAudit Plus

Business challenges

• Difficulty in investigating account lockouts: The IT team at Butterfield Bank faced challenges in identifying the source of user account lockouts, which impacted troubleshooting and user support processes.
• Lack of effective reporting on password expiry: Tracking and reporting on password expirations was a manual and time-consuming task, making it difficult to ensure timely updates and compliance.

The problem

Butterfield Bank's administrative team faced significant challenges with managing and monitoring Active Directory users. Patrick Duggan, the senior technical manager at Butterfield Bank, recounted how his team lacked visibility into the source of the IT issues experienced by users: "We had challenges in understanding which user accounts were getting locked - where the lockout was occurring" Additionally, the absence of a streamlined method for reporting on password expirations and monitoring changes to OUs and groups left gaps in their security and auditing processes. Butterfield Bank needed a comprehensive solution to address these challenges and ensure compliance with internal and external audit requirements.

The solution

Butterfield Bank deployed ADAudit Plus, ManageEngine's IT auditing solution, to overcome its IT challenges and streamline Active Directory monitoring and reporting. The solution provided the IT team with the tools needed to improve visibility and enhance security.

ADAudit Plus' comprehensive report library and alert profiles enabled Butterfield Bank to have a close eye on administrative accounts, with Duggan adding "We have been able to monitor and alert on a specific OU for our least privilege accounts (admin) to verify they are being used in a proper manner." This allowed the IT team to verify the activity of privileged users and ensure adherence to security protocols. Besides, Duggan observed how the user monitoring capabilities of ADAudit Plus provided the technical insights (such as locked out time, IP address, logon type) needed to identify the exact systems causing user account lockouts. This improved the IT team’s ability to address end user issues proactively by accurately identifying their root causes and resolving them accordingly.

With ADAudit Plus, Butterfield Bank were able to generate detailed reports on admin group activities and password expirations, meeting both internal and external audit requirements with ease. Duggan expresses immense satisfaction, saying "[ADAudit Plus'] reports are very effective. We have been able to manage our audit points for Admin groups. We can provide these to internal and external auditors." Butterfield Bank also praised ManageEngine’s support team for their responsiveness and expertise: "Your support team has always been quite helpful. We have several ManageEngine products in use."

Duggan opined that the deployment of ADAudit Plus has worked well for his team, adding, "I believe this solution is working well for the medium size company who separates their least privilege accounts from the standard accounts."

About ADAudit Plus

ADAudit Plus is a real-time Active Directory change auditing solution that features file and folder monitoring, plus access and permission change capabilities. With more than 200 event-specific reports and real-time email alerts, it provides in-depth knowledge about changes made to both the content and configurations of Active Directory, Azure AD, and Windows servers. Additionally, ADAudit Plus provides thorough insights on workstation and file server access (including NetApp and EMC). For more information about ADAudit Plus, visit https://www.manageengine.com/products/active-directory-audit/.