A Crash Course in Audit Logs

In this talk, we’ll explain the purpose and value of audit logs, present a best-practices logging checklist, and break down an all-purpose log reference format that you can use today.

Application audit logs include a breadcrumb trail of all user activity and the logs are used to answer many different questions in a variety of contexts. Development teams perform analytics on the logs. Security teams write threat detection logic on the logs. Customers will arbitrarily request the logs. Government regulations (GDPR, CCPA, etc.) will mandate that you save them, but then eventually delete them. Your responsibility as a developer or security engineer is to make sure the logs are useful and usable by all of these different stakeholders—and that means robust, high-quality log management tooling. In this talk, we’ll explain the purpose and value of audit logs, present a best-practices logging checklist, and break down an all-purpose log reference format that you can use today!