An effective Active Directory audit combines four activities: identify enabled accounts that have not authenticated recently, test password controls without exposing credentials, calculate effective privilege through nested groups and delegated permissions, and continuously monitor privileged changes. A practical starting threshold is 90 days without a logon, as used by Microsoft Defender for Identity, but every disable or deletion still requires service-owner and business-owner validation.
The result should be a dated evidence package that shows what was examined, which exceptions were approved, what was changed, and when the fix was verified. Treat each finding as an access path rather than a single attribute: a user who is not a direct member of Domain Admins may still reach sensitive systems through nested groups, ACLs, AdminSDHolder permissions, or a Group Policy Object (GPO).
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Define the audit before you query the directory
Write the scope, date, domains, forests, organizational units (OUs), and authoritative identity source before collecting data. Include enabled user and computer objects where they can authenticate, privileged groups, delegated ACLs, GPOs, and hybrid-identity controls. Assign an owner to every exception and record the business reason in the evidence set.
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Set a defensible inactivity rule
Microsoft Defender for Identity describes a stale user as one that has not logged in at all during the past 90 days, excluding service accounts and disabled or deleted accounts. Use 90 days as an assessment threshold, not an automatic deletion rule. Your policy may choose a shorter or longer period for seasonal work, contractors, or regulated systems; record the chosen interval and the date on which it was evaluated.
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Prepare read access and evidence storage
- Use an audit identity with read access to the directory, group memberships, ACLs, and GPO security settings. Separate collection rights from remediation rights.
- Capture the collection date, domain and forest names, tools or consoles used, and the source of each last-logon value.
- Store exports and screenshots in a restricted, tamper-evident location. Do not place passwords, password hashes, or unrestricted personal data in the package.
- Agree on a monitoring period between disabling an account and deleting it, together with the retention rule that governs deletion.
Find and handle stale accounts
Start with enabled users and the relevant last-logon attributes. Reconcile the results with human-resources records, application inventories, ticketing data, and the named owner of each account. A timestamp alone cannot tell you whether an account is safe to remove.
Collection and validation procedure
- Export the population. List enabled user accounts and include account name, display name, OU, enabled state, last-logon values used by your directory, password-expiration or non-expiring status, group memberships, and the assigned owner.
- Apply the threshold. Flag accounts with no logon during the documented 90-day window, or your approved policy window. Keep the exact cutoff date in the report.
- Classify exceptions. Mark service, application, break-glass, emergency, seasonal, and other non-human accounts separately. Disabled and deleted objects are outside the Defender for Identity stale-user definition, but they still belong in lifecycle reconciliation.
- Validate ownership. Ask the owner to confirm purpose, expected use, dependent applications, scheduled jobs, and a recovery contact. Record the response and business justification.
- Disable first. For confirmed-unused accounts, disable access during a monitoring period rather than deleting immediately. Watch authentication, job failures, help-desk reports, and application health.
- Remove under policy. Delete only after the monitoring period, owner approval, legal or retention checks, and a restorable backup or documented recovery path.
| Account category | Evidence to obtain | Typical action |
|---|---|---|
| Ordinary employee account | HR status, manager confirmation, last-logon source | Disable after confirmation; delete after the approved retention period |
| Service or application account | Application owner, dependencies, scheduled tasks, credential-rotation plan | Do not delete from a timestamp; validate and redesign or rotate credentials where possible |
| Break-glass or emergency account | Incident-response owner, access test record, storage and alerting controls | Keep only when justified; protect, monitor, and test recovery access |
| Seasonal or temporary account | Contract or season dates and next required use | Disable outside the approved period and retain an owner and reactivation date |
| Disabled or deleted object | Lifecycle record and retention requirement | Reconcile with policy; do not count it as an enabled stale user |
What makes a stale-account finding reliable
Include the last-logon source and its limitations in every report. If different domain controllers or data exports produce different values, do not silently choose the most favorable one; state which value governed the decision and seek owner confirmation. A “never logged on” result is a reason to investigate, not proof that the account is unused.
Audit password controls without seeing passwords
Weak-password auditing evaluates controls and exposure signals, never plaintext credentials. Review the domain Account Policies > Password Policy and every fine-grained password policy that can apply to users. For synchronized users, the on-premises AD DS policy remains the governing password-change policy, while Microsoft Entra controls may add cloud-side protections. Document which directory is authoritative for each control.
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| Control | What to verify | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum length | Required length for the domain and each fine-grained policy | Policy export or console capture, scope, and effective-user examples |
| Complexity | Whether complexity categories are enforced and where exceptions exist | Effective policy and approved exception list |
| Password history | Number of previous passwords remembered and whether reuse is blocked | Configured value and rationale |
| Maximum age | Expiration period and users exempted from it | Effective policy, expiration attributes, and exception owner |
| Lockout | Threshold, observation window, and lockout duration | Values, service-account impact assessment, and incident contacts |
| Non-expiring passwords | Accounts configured to bypass expiration | Account list, owner, business reason, and compensating controls |
| Banned-password protection | Global banned-password list, organization-specific banned terms, complexity categories, and immediate-reuse prevention | Microsoft Entra configuration and synchronized-user design |
Microsoft describes banned-password protection as including a global list, an organization-specific list, complexity categories, and prevention of immediate password reuse. Strong policy reduces the chance of compromise by manual or automated guessing, but policy strength does not prove that every existing credential is strong.
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Use safe exposure signals
- Review password-expiration and non-expiring attributes, recent password-change activity, lockout events, failed-authentication patterns, and approved authentication telemetry.
- Use an approved password-audit method that compares protected representations or policy outcomes without disclosing credentials. Require security review of the tool, its handling of results, and its deletion process.
- Never request, export, email, or store plaintext passwords. Do not ask administrators or users to send them for testing.
- Record service-account and application exceptions together with rotation schedules, vaulting, interactive-logon restrictions, and other compensating controls.
Separate on-premises and cloud conclusions
For a synchronized identity, state whether the tested rule comes from AD DS or Microsoft Entra. A cloud banned-password setting does not replace the on-premises AD DS password-change policy for synchronized users. A finding is incomplete if it names a control but not the directory that enforces it.
Calculate excessive privilege as effective access
Enumerate direct and transitive membership in high-impact groups, then inspect delegated permissions and GPO reach. Microsoft identifies Administrators, Domain Admins, Enterprise Admins, Schema Admins, Account Operators, Backup Operators, Server Operators, and Print Operators as protected or high-impact groups. The same review must cover custom groups that grant equivalent rights.
High-impact group review
| Group or permission area | Questions to answer |
|---|---|
| Domain Admins and Enterprise Admins | Who is a direct or nested member? Is each membership time-bound, approved, and required? |
| Schema Admins | Who can change schema during an approved change window, and how is use monitored? |
| Built-in operator groups | Do Backup, Account, Server, or Print Operators retain rights that exceed current duties? |
| Administrators and custom groups | Can members add principals, reset passwords, change security descriptors, or reach sensitive servers? |
| Delegated ACLs | Which users or groups can write membership, reset credentials, create objects, or alter permissions on OUs, groups, GPOs, and sensitive objects? |
Trace nested and delegated paths
- Expand every privileged group recursively and preserve the path from the user to the target group.
- Inspect OU, group, GPO, and sensitive-object ACLs for write membership, password-reset, ownership, security-descriptor, and GPO-modification rights.
- Calculate whether a principal can combine two ordinary rights into a privileged outcome, such as modifying a group that controls local administrators.
- Compare effective access with the job requirement, not merely with the account’s direct group list.
- Ask the owner to remove, narrow, or time-limit rights that are not required for day-to-day work.
Least-privilege assessments commonly find accounts with rights far beyond their daily requirements. Treat that as an access-design problem: remove unnecessary paths, separate administration from ordinary work, and retain an approved emergency route.
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Protected groups and objects behave differently from ordinary OU members. SDProp runs every 60 minutes by default on the PDC Emulator and reapplies the AdminSDHolder security descriptor. Protected objects do not inherit permissions from their parent OU, so an apparent OU-level change may not affect them.
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AdminSDHolder procedure
- Identify the protected-object population and accounts carrying the
adminCountor equivalent protected-object state. - Compare each object’s effective ACL with the AdminSDHolder descriptor and document the principal, right, inheritance state, and source object.
- Investigate non-sensitive accounts that retain AdminSDHolder rights; Microsoft specifically identifies such rights as a privilege-escalation risk.
- Find where an unwanted permission originated before changing it. A manual ACL edit on a protected object can be overwritten by the next SDProp cycle.
- After remediation, verify the object again after the next expected SDProp run and record the verification time.
Do not “fix” a recurring permission by repeatedly editing child objects. Correct the AdminSDHolder or group-membership source, obtain change approval, and test the effect on legitimate administration.
Audit GPO assignments and modification rights
GPOs can turn a narrow directory permission into broad local or domain access. Review both who receives a policy and who can change it.
GPO checks
- Look for assignments that add Authenticated Users, Everyone, or similarly broad principals to local Administrators or Remote Desktop Users.
- Identify unprivileged users or groups that can edit, link, delete, or change security filtering on a GPO.
- Trace the GPO link from the domain or OU to the affected computers and users, including nested group membership and deny or allow filters.
- Check whether a delegated administrator can modify a GPO that applies to a more privileged OU than their role requires.
- Record the resulting effective access, not just the GPO’s name or direct security-filter list.
Prioritize a GPO finding when a broadly assigned policy combines with a writable GPO, local-administrator membership, or a path to modify security descriptors.
Handle Protected Users and hybrid identity carefully
Protected Users
The Protected Users group is a credential-theft protection control that requires AES for Kerberos. Do not add service or computer accounts by default. Test application compatibility before enrolling privileged users, and maintain a tested recovery path for administrators who cannot authenticate after enrollment.
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Microsoft documents a 240-minute maximum ticket lifetime or renewal behavior for Protected Users members. Use that value when reviewing session expectations and incident timelines, and distinguish it from ordinary account lockout or password-expiration settings.
Hybrid identity
Maintain a control map showing whether AD DS, Microsoft Entra, or a synchronization process is authoritative for each password, authentication, and group decision. Test a representative synchronized user, an on-premises-only user, and an exception account. A finding should name the directory in which remediation must occur.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Prioritize findings by combined risk
Do not rank a stale account, a password exception, or a privileged membership in isolation. The most urgent cases combine a credential that is unused or weakly protected with broad effective privilege or a path to change GPOs and security descriptors.
| Decision axis | Questions | Higher priority when… |
|---|---|---|
| Inactivity confidence | Is the 90-day or approved threshold met, and has the owner confirmed non-use? | The account is enabled, ownerless, and unused across all known systems |
| Credential risk | Is the password non-expiring, outside banned-password controls, or associated with suspicious authentication telemetry? | Multiple weak-control indicators occur together |
| Privilege breadth | What can the principal reach directly or transitively? | It reaches domain, enterprise, schema, local-administrator, backup, or security-descriptor control |
| Inheritance and AdminSDHolder | Will SDProp or protected-object behavior defeat the proposed fix? | The permission is reapplied or bypasses normal OU inheritance |
| GPO reach | Can the principal edit or broadly assign a GPO? | The GPO affects administrators, remote desktop access, or sensitive OUs |
| Business ownership | Is there a named owner and documented need? | No owner, no justification, or conflicting records exist |
| Reversibility | Can access be disabled and restored safely? | Disable-first testing is possible; irreversible deletion is not the first step |
Remediate without creating an outage
- Contain reversible exposure. Disable confirmed-unused accounts, remove unnecessary privileged membership, or narrow a delegation while preserving a tested administrative path.
- Correct the source. Change the group, ACL, AdminSDHolder descriptor, or GPO permission that creates the access path; do not rely on edits that SDProp will overwrite.
- Protect credentials. Require the approved password policy, remove unjustified non-expiring settings, rotate service credentials through the owner’s process, and apply compensating controls where rotation cannot yet occur.
- Test dependent systems. Check scheduled jobs, applications, backups, remote administration, and emergency access during the monitoring period.
- Verify and close. Re-run effective-membership, ACL, GPO, and policy checks; for protected objects, verify after the expected SDProp cycle. Link the result to the remediation ticket and record the verification date.
Monitor privileged changes continuously
An audit is not complete when the spreadsheet is delivered. Enable and retain auditing for changes to privileged account attributes and membership of Administrators, Domain Admins, Enterprise Admins, and Schema Admins. Restrict who can modify those accounts and alert on unauthorized or unusual changes.
Minimum evidence package
- Account inventory, enabled-state filter, last-logon source, threshold date, and exception decisions
- Domain and fine-grained password-policy results, non-expiring-account list, banned-password configuration, and hybrid-authority map
- Effective direct and transitive group membership, delegated ACL findings, AdminSDHolder comparison, and protected-object verification
- GPO assignment and modification-right findings, including broad-principal exposure
- Owner approvals, compensating controls, remediation tickets, disablement dates, deletion decisions, and verification dates
- Retained change events for privileged attributes and group memberships
Common audit mistakes and their fixes
Deleting every account older than the threshold
Why it fails: service, break-glass, seasonal, and application accounts may be intentionally quiet. Fix: validate the owner, disable first, monitor, and delete only under retention policy.
Requesting a password export
Why it fails: it creates a credential-handling risk and is unnecessary for policy assessment. Fix: use policy settings, expiration attributes, banned-password controls, authentication telemetry, and approved non-disclosing audit methods.
Checking only direct Domain Admins membership
Why it fails: nested groups, delegated ACLs, AdminSDHolder, and GPOs can provide equivalent access. Fix: calculate effective paths to the target resource.
Editing a protected object and stopping
Why it fails: SDProp can restore the AdminSDHolder descriptor about every 60 minutes. Fix: locate and correct the source permission, then verify after the next cycle.
Applying cloud conclusions to synchronized users
Why it fails: on-premises AD DS remains the governing password-change policy for synchronized users. Fix: document the authoritative directory for each control and test representative accounts.
Recommended audit cadence
Run a full baseline after major directory, merger, or GPO changes. Recheck stale-account candidates and privileged-group membership on a regular schedule set by your risk policy, and monitor privileged changes continuously. Re-open a finding when ownership, application dependencies, synchronization design, or the effective access path changes.
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