Overcoming Common Visibility Issues with Exchange Server Auditing

Last Updated on May 21, 2024 by Ashok Kumar

Whether you’re an intern, an employee, a partner, or the CEO; most employees use email as their primary form of communication both internally and externally. Due to the amount of critical and sensitive information shared via this medium, it’s important to have some sort of visibility over who’s accessing mailboxes.

Most cyber-criminals target valuable data stockpiled in multiple computers and servers in your IT infrastructure. Exchange Server deployments in your environment can be secured by continually tracking, monitoring and reporting modifications in mailbox accesses, delegation, permissions, logon attempts and much more.

With the number of mailboxes containing highly confidential information on the rise in many businesses, the need to audit critical changes in Exchange Server is more prevalent than ever before. However, Exchange Server auditing is not without its challenges. Here, I’ve laid out some of the most common issues that you may face when you come to auditing your Exchange environment.

Examining configuration changes

Tracking changes made to server configurations is often a daunting task. When you have multiple administrators in your organization, it can be difficult to monitor changes made individuals. With Exchange Server Auditor, the required information is already organized in pre-set reports. Details on modifications made to mailbox settings, policies, mail contacts, address book, address list, distribution group, storage group and mailbox database modifications are all easily within your grasp.

Unauthorized Mailbox access

Many organizations face hefty financial penalties from unauthorized mailbox accesses. The audit reports generated by Lepide Data Security Platform help IT teams investigate these security incidents. Details like accesses by non-owners, administrators, delegated users and owners provide the insight needed to identify and prevent such occurrences.

Modifications in your mailbox

Mailbox modifications can have serious ramifications; including exposure of critical data, leakage of valuable data assets, relocation of email with sensitive content and the deletion of important emails. Exchange Server Auditor offers comprehensive reports for created, deleted and modified mailboxes. You also get insight into modified migrations, delivery options, message size restrictions and message delivery restrictions.

Keeping an eye on mailbox permissions

Delegated permissions, if set incorrectly, create a situation where anyone and everyone can access the mailbox. Having the permission to access a mailbox is the same as giving that user the right to do anything with the contents within it. They can read, delete, change content, change the location and can even share messages with unauthorized parties. Exchange Server Auditor generates permission reports for all the modifications made to mailbox permissions so that you can help prevent this from happening.

Shared Mailbox Accesses and Changes

When organizations require multiple people to team up for a particular project, shared mailboxes can help provide centralized services. In such cases, a lot of security issues can potentially arise. Emails can be copied or destroyed, sensitive information can be shared with third parties and much more. Lepide Data Security Platform audits configuration changes and accesses made to Shared Mailboxes, including `who accessed the shared mailbox, when and from where. This level of granular detail should help you overcome this common Exchange Server issue.