Windows event log monitoring software

What is event log monitoring?

Event logs are generated by Windows systems for every activity happening in them. Windows organizes these logs into distinct channels, including Security, System, Application, Setup, and Forwarded Events. Each channel captures a different category of system and user activity. These logs are stored as .evtx files under C:\Windows\System32\winevt\Logs\ and can be viewed natively through Event Viewer or queried with PowerShell. Event log monitoring is a continuous process of collecting, tracking, and analyzing logs from Windows machines for effective Windows event log management. Organizations of all different sizes across industries need to monitor event logs to effectively troubleshoot network issues, maintain the health and performance of systems, ensure security, and achieve compliance.

ManageEngine EventLog Analyzer, a comprehensive log monitoring and IT compliance management solution, collects, analyzes, correlates, searches, and archives event logs. The solution generates reports and alerts on critical security events happening in Windows systems and servers.

Why is an event log monitoring tool essential?

Manually sifting through terabytes of log data using native tools like the Event Viewer is a time-consuming and inefficient task. This can significantly hinder an IT administrator's ability to monitor network and security events effectively. To maintain optimal network performance and security, and to troubleshoot more easily, it's crucial to implement a dedicated log monitoring tool.

A log monitoring tool such as ManageEngine EventLog Analyzer automates the process of collecting, analyzing, and alerting on log data. This empowers IT administrators to:

• Quickly identify and resolve issues: By analyzing log data in real time, administrators can swiftly pinpoint the root cause of problems.
• Enhance security posture: Proactive monitoring of security-related logs helps administrators detect and respond to potential threats before they escalate.
• Gain deeper insights: Advanced analytics capabilities allow administrators to uncover trends, patterns, and anomalies that may not be apparent in raw log data.
• Optimize resource utilization: By identifying inefficient resource usage, administrators can make data-driven decisions to improve system performance.

EventLog Analyzer's event log monitoring capabilities

Automated event log collection and analysis

EventLog Analyzer is an intuitive, easy-to-use, and automated log monitoring tool. Upon installation, the solution automatically discovers all the Windows devices in the network for log monitoring. It helps in centralizing event logs and generating event log monitoring reports with prebuilt templates and out-of-the-box alert profiles to get notified about critical security events. Visualize system event log data granularly using trend reports to troubleshoot and optimize system performance.

System log monitoring

Monitor critical system events, such as unexpected shutdowns and restarts, Active Directory backup errors, hard disk failures, and low disk space, with predefined reports. EventLog Analyzer also sends out notifications in near-real-time upon detection of anomalous system events, such as frequent hard disk failures on critical servers, blue screen of death (BSOD), or unexpected restarts without a clean shutdown (event ID 41). The solution gathers and presents relevant system logs as evidence to investigate critical system errors, such as kernel security check failures.

Security event log monitoring

Centrally view and monitor security logs from Windows devices across the network with EventLog Analyzer. This event log monitoring solution comes with out-of-the-box correlation rules, alert profiles, and reports to continuously monitor and analyze critical security events, including:

• Abnormal user logons: Monitor user logons outside business hours, multiple logons from different locations at the same time, an unusual number of logon failures, suspicious user logons to a device, and more.
• User account lockouts: Identify user account lockouts, users locked out due to repeated logon failures, user accounts unlocked using network policy servers, and more.

For Windows to generate these security events, the appropriate audit policies must be enabled either locally or centrally through group policy. EventLog Analyzer works with both basic and advanced audit policy configurations across all supported Windows versions.

Windows error log monitoring

Windows classifies events into four severity levels such as Information, Warning, Error, and Critical with Error and Critical events requiring the most urgent attention. Filter, view, and check for Windows error logs from Microsoft devices across your infrastructure. Compared to the native tool, the Event Viewer, EventLog Analyzer is easier to use for filtering and analyzing Windows error logs. Get detailed insights on:

• Application crashes
• Backup errors
• BSODs
• Error event trends
• Windows update errors

And more with detailed reports. Set up alerts for errors occurring on critical servers for effective and quick troubleshooting.

Event log monitoring for compliance

Centralized collection and storage of critical Windows server event log data is crucial to achieve regulatory compliance. EventLog Analyzer facilitates customized and secured log archival with the ability to reload log data back to the database for forensic analysis. Further, this event log monitoring solution helps:

• Generate audit-ready report templates for regulatory mandates such as the PCI DSS, HIPAA, the GDPR, and SOX.
• Continuously assess the risks of Active Directory and provide mitigation plans.
• Send out compliance violation alerts.

Detecting threats through event log correlation

With its advanced correlation engine and predefined rules, EventLog Analyzer detects sophisticated and advanced persistent threats. Correlating Windows system and security logs across different devices, the solution can detect:

• Brute-force attacks
• Excessive and abnormal logon failures
• Logons from different locations within a short time
• Suspicious software installations on Windows devices
• Process spawning from a suspicious parent

Further, EventLog Analyzer also correlates Windows event logs with network and application logs to detect external intrusions and attacks. The solution's threat hunting and analytics component, the Incident Workbench, brings contextual data together for effective incident analysis.

How to monitor Windows event logs with EventLog Analyzer?

EventLog Analyzer is a powerful yet easy-to-use Windows event log monitoring solution.

This tool:

• Automatically detects Windows devices in the network using a specific IP address or CIDR range.
• Upon configuration, collects, parses, and normalizes event logs in a central location, providing complete visibility and the capability to view all event logs from a single console.
• Provides valuable insights into system and security events with predefined reports. These reports are auto-generated, provide information in the form of an intuitive dashboard, and present details in the form of trend graphs.
• Filters out specific event logs through an intuitive and fast search engine. It also provides simple and advanced search options to narrow down to specific log entries.
• Alerts in near-real-time upon critical events. It comes with over 200 predefined alert criteria exclusively for Windows event log monitoring to detect suspicious user behaviors and system events.
• Retains event logs for custom time periods. It also allows for event log archival in external storage devices and cloud platforms.