To check for a possible compromise, compare activity across your business accounts, devices, servers, cloud services and network with what is normal for your organization. Investigate unusual logins, unexpected administrator changes, suspicious file access and unfamiliar network activity—but treat any single alert as a lead, not proof. A scan or a quiet dashboard cannot certify that every system is clean.
If the signs are credible, follow your incident-response plan, coordinate containment and preserve relevant evidence before attempting cleanup. The right sequence depends on the threat, the systems involved, the evidence you need and the business services that must keep running.
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What a compromise check can—and cannot—tell you
A compromise check is a review of system activity and related evidence to determine whether unauthorized access or other malicious activity may have occurred. It can help you identify suspicious behavior, affected accounts or systems, and questions that need a closer investigation. It is not a one-click test that proves an environment is safe.
Security alerts can be false positives: legitimate travel, a new device, a software deployment or a change in user duties may look unusual. The reverse is also true. An attacker may not trigger the alerts you have configured, and missing or incomplete logs can leave gaps. Treat findings in context: who was involved, what they accessed or changed, when it happened, where the activity came from and whether it fits an authorized business action.
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This guide draws on U.S. government guidance, including threat-specific recommendations. Your legal duties, regulators and reporting deadlines depend on your jurisdiction, sector, data and the facts of an incident. This is not a forensic determination or legal advice.
Start with activity records, not a single device scan
Logs record activity on systems—for example, who accessed what, when and from where. Monitoring means reviewing those records for anomalies or unauthorized behavior. CISA recommends collecting and reviewing logs from relevant business systems, including servers, firewalls, endpoint devices and cloud services. Its business logging guidance explains logging and monitoring and describes Logging Made Easy, a no-cost option for collecting, storing and reviewing logs.
CISA puts the distinction plainly: “Logging is the process of recording this activity on your business systems, including who accessed what, when, and from where.” It describes monitoring as an added layer of oversight that reviews logs for anomalies or unauthorized behavior. In practice, logging gives you records to examine; monitoring helps surface events that merit attention. Neither guarantees that every intrusion will be detected.
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Where possible, enable and centralize relevant logs across systems rather than relying on one machine or one dashboard. Central collection can make it easier to compare activity across services, but it does not replace checking whether the records cover the accounts and systems involved. Identify who is responsible for reviewing them, how the organization will retrieve them during an incident, and whether the available history covers the period relevant to the concern. Alerts can help prioritize events such as repeated failed logins, privilege escalation or other high-risk activity, but an alert still needs context and follow-up.
Build a baseline of expected activity
Use business context to define normal: which people and service accounts should access which systems, what administrator tasks are scheduled, where staff normally sign in from, and when routine maintenance or data transfers occur. Compare an anomaly with that baseline and verify whether a manager, system owner or change record can explain it. A change may be authorized even if it is new; an activity that seems ordinary may still deserve review if the account or system should not be doing it.
Baselines are most useful when they reflect the way your organization actually works and are kept current as roles, services and processes change. For example, an administrator sign-in outside a usual pattern may be explained by approved maintenance, but you should verify the person, timing and change record rather than assume either a breach or a harmless exception. Likewise, a failed-login alert can reflect a user mistake; a pattern that is unusual for the account or appears alongside other suspicious activity deserves more scrutiny.
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Protect the records you may need
Restrict access to logs and protect them against unauthorized alteration or deletion. Set retention according to your organization’s policy and compliance needs, and make sure relevant records can be retrieved during a response. If logs are spread across separate services, identify where each one lives and who can export it. A record that was never enabled, has already expired or was deleted may not be recoverable during an investigation.
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Do not wait until an incident to find out that no one can access a cloud audit record or that a system’s history is no longer available. Document the relevant services and their record locations as part of normal operations. If you suspect an account with log-management privileges is involved, tell the response lead; access controls and the possibility of tampering are part of interpreting the records themselves.
Which warning signs should you investigate?
Look for activity that is unexpected for the account, system, time or business process. None of the examples below alone proves an intrusion; use them to identify records to correlate and questions to resolve.
| Signal | What to check | How to interpret it |
|---|---|---|
| Unusual login activity | Sign-in records for the account, time, source and service; whether the user recognizes the session or device. | Confirm business context and related activity. A sign-in that differs from normal is a lead, not proof by itself. |
| Unexpected administrative change | Who made the change, what privilege or setting changed, when it happened, and whether an approved request or maintenance task explains it. | Escalate changes that cannot be tied to an authorized administrator or business reason. |
| Possible privilege escalation | Account and administrator records for new privileges or use of elevated access that does not match the person’s duties. | Correlate with the account’s other activity and with any approved access change. |
| Suspicious access to files or systems | Which account accessed which resources, when, and whether the access matches the user’s normal responsibilities. | Check for related activity across the systems involved rather than treating one file event as a complete picture. |
| Unfamiliar network activity | Relevant firewall, network or system records and whether the activity fits a known service, workload or business process. | Compare with your established baseline; unusual traffic warrants investigation but may have a legitimate cause. |
CISA’s guidance identifies unauthorized access, unexpected administrative activity, unusual logins, privilege escalation, suspicious access and deviations from normal network activity as matters to investigate. It does not provide a universal checklist whose completion confirms compromise—or proves there was none. An alert can be wrong, and the absence of an alert is not an all-clear.
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When reviewing a signal, look for a sequence, not just a single event. Ask whether the same account signed in, changed a setting, accessed files and then contacted systems it does not normally use. Compare the timing and systems involved across available records. A pattern can help responders decide what to investigate next, but do not infer intent or declare a confirmed incident solely from correlation; preserve what you found and escalate credible concerns.
A first-check workflow for a suspected compromise
1. Record the concern and preserve the immediate context
Note what was observed, when it was noticed, which account or system is involved, and who reported it. Preserve the alert or record in its original system if possible. Do not assume a screenshot or a user’s recollection replaces underlying logs. Avoid casual cleanup, deleting files or resetting devices while the organization is deciding how to investigate; those actions may remove information responders need.
Keep a simple record of what you did after noticing the concern: who was notified, what systems were checked, and whether anyone changed access, disconnected equipment or restarted a service. This helps the response team separate original activity from actions taken during the response. If you are unsure whether an action is safe, ask the designated incident lead rather than experimenting on a potentially affected system.
2. Identify the systems and accounts in scope
Make an initial list of the accounts, endpoints, servers, cloud resources and network segments connected to the observation. Ask what the account could access and what other systems it touched. Check whether the same unusual activity appears in identity records, application sign-ins, endpoint or server events, file access or network logs. Expand the scope when evidence points to additional systems; do not treat one clean workstation check as clearance for the wider business environment.
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Scope can change as records are reviewed. If an affected account has access to several applications, or an endpoint communicates with a server that supports other services, those connections may become relevant. Record why a system is included or excluded and revisit that decision if new evidence emerges. The goal of an initial scope is to guide careful investigation, not to claim that every potentially related system has already been cleared.
3. Correlate activity with people and approved changes
Ask the relevant user or system owner whether the activity was expected, then verify the answer against change approvals, maintenance schedules and other records. Keep the question neutral: an unfamiliar event may result from a legitimate change, a misconfiguration, a stolen account or another cause. Record what you can establish and what remains uncertain rather than labeling an anomaly as a confirmed attack too early.
When an event appears to come from a named account, distinguish the account’s identity from the person who actually performed the action. Check available sign-in and activity records, and ask whether the user recognizes the session. Do not assume that a familiar username settles who was at the keyboard. If the user cannot explain the event, or the explanation conflicts with other records, pass that discrepancy to the response lead.
4. Escalate credible indicators promptly
Use your incident-response plan and alert the designated security or IT lead. Involve leadership and the people responsible for communications, legal matters and business continuity as appropriate. If you do not have internal incident-response expertise, consider qualified third-party responders. CISA’s advisory recommends considering outside incident-response support in its advisory context; evaluate any provider independently rather than assuming a particular service is appropriate.
Senior management should make clear that indications of malicious activity should be reported even when security controls appear to have blocked them. CISA’s guidance for corporate leaders and CEOs emphasizes reporting such indications. A blocked alert may not mean a compromise succeeded, but reporting it gives the organization a chance to assess the event, check related records and decide whether further action is needed. Staff should know whom to contact and how to reach them if usual systems are unavailable or suspected of being monitored.
5. Decide on containment with the response team
Containment may involve isolating affected systems or limiting access, but the correct action depends on the threat, evidence needs and continuity requirements. CISA’s advisory recommends immediate isolation of affected systems in the threat context it covers. Coordinate the choice with your response team: isolation can interrupt business operations, while leaving a compromised system connected may allow further activity.
Use a communication channel that is not suspected of being monitored if there is reason to think an attacker can see your usual channels. CISA’s ransomware guide cautions that actors may monitor activity and stresses the value of preserving volatile evidence. It recommends powering down a device only when disconnecting it from the network is not possible to prevent further spread, because shutting it down can lose volatile evidence. Do not improvise a shutdown or cleanup sequence; get incident-response direction when available.
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Preserve evidence while balancing business continuity
Evidence can be lost through routine system use, cleanup, shutdown or an attacker’s actions. CISA’s advisory recommends reviewing and collecting relevant data and artifacts, capturing memory and creating forensic images in the context of that advisory. Its ransomware guide also discusses volatile evidence and cloud-volume snapshots for later forensic review. These are response tasks for trained personnel; a business user should not attempt forensic acquisition without the right expertise and authorization.
Tell responders which systems are affected, what has already been changed, and what must remain available for critical operations. That helps them balance preserving evidence with limiting harm to the business. Cloud services may have their own retention and snapshot capabilities, so identify the relevant service and coordinate preservation with its administrator or provider. A snapshot can preserve a point-in-time view for review; it does not, by itself, establish that the environment is clean.
Evidence preservation and service availability can pull in different directions. Leaving a system running may keep a business process available but allow activity to continue or records to change. Disconnecting it may limit exposure but interrupt operations. Shutting it down may stop some activity, yet volatile information can be lost. There is no universal choice that fits every event; responders need the facts, the organization’s continuity priorities and the systems’ dependencies to determine an appropriate approach.
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| Evidence preservation | Could continued use, a shutdown, a reset or cleanup destroy records or volatile information needed to understand what happened? |
| Containment | What activity could continue if the system remains connected, and can access be limited without disrupting other systems unnecessarily? |
| Business continuity | Which functions must remain available, and what disruption would isolation or recovery cause? |
| Available expertise | Does the organization have trained responders for the necessary collection and analysis, or should it bring in outside support? |
CISA’s federal incident-response and vulnerability-response playbooks provide additional response context. They are federal playbooks, not a substitute for a business’s own plan or a universal sequence for every organization.
Coordinate reporting, communications and recovery
Once a potential incident is credible, assign clear roles. IT or security can coordinate technical investigation; leadership can make business-continuity decisions; legal counsel can assess legal obligations; and communications staff can coordinate internal and external messaging. The right participants vary by organization, but response should not be left to an individual technician making uncoordinated changes.
Reporting obligations and deadlines depend on jurisdiction, sector, the type of data involved and the incident facts. Consult your incident-response plan, qualified counsel and relevant regulators rather than applying a universal deadline. CISA’s guidance for corporate leaders and CEOs emphasizes leadership involvement and reporting indications of malicious activity, including activity that security controls may have blocked. CISA’s ransomware guidance likewise points organizations to their incident-response and communications plans for breach notifications. U.S. government reporting channels listed in advisories can change; check the current official advisory or agency site before using a contact route.
Keep external statements coordinated with the people responsible for legal and communications decisions. Do not promise that no data was affected, or describe an event as contained, before responders have assessed the available facts. Internal updates should also be clear about what is known, what remains uncertain and whom staff should contact with relevant information. These steps support an orderly response; they do not replace any reporting duty that applies to the business.
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Do not treat recovery as simply turning systems back on. Let the response team determine what needs to be restored, what accounts or access should be reviewed, and what checks are appropriate before affected services return to normal use. Keep a record of decisions, findings and unresolved questions to support continuity planning and any required reporting.
Common mistakes that make a check less reliable
- Checking only one endpoint: evidence may involve an account, server, cloud resource or connected system as well as the device where an alert appeared.
- Assuming a scanner or quiet dashboard proves safety: tools can help find indicators, but they cannot establish that every system is clean.
- Deleting or resetting before preserving records: ad hoc cleanup can remove useful evidence or make it harder to reconstruct activity.
- Powering off immediately without considering evidence: shutdown can lose volatile evidence. Coordinate containment, and follow trained responder guidance.
- Waiting for certainty before escalating: a suspicious event may be unconfirmed, but prompt escalation lets the organization assess risk and preserve options.
- Communicating only through potentially monitored channels: if monitoring is plausible, coordinate through a safer, out-of-band channel.
- Making legal or public statements before checking obligations: reporting and notification requirements are fact- and jurisdiction-specific; involve counsel and the relevant response roles.
- Treating missing logs as evidence of no activity: records may not have been enabled, may have expired or may be incomplete. Document the gap and share it with responders.
- Assuming an alert is either definitely malicious or harmless: verify it against users, approved changes and related activity; escalate when it remains unexplained.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can an antivirus scan or security dashboard prove that my business systems are clean?
No. A scan or alerting dashboard may help identify indicators, but it cannot certify that every account, device, server, cloud resource and connected system is free of compromise. Alerts can be false positives, and an attacker may not trigger configured alerts. Review activity records in context and escalate credible concerns.
What should I check first if I suspect unauthorized access?
Record what was observed, when it was noticed, and which account or system is involved. Review available sign-in, administrator, endpoint, server, file-access and network records, then compare the activity with expected business behavior and approved changes. Preserve the original records and notify the designated incident lead.
Should I turn off a computer if I think it has been compromised?
Do not make that decision casually. Disconnecting a system may help contain activity, but shutting it down can lose volatile evidence. CISA’s ransomware guide recommends powering down only when network disconnection is not possible to prevent further spread. Coordinate the decision with your incident-response team or a qualified responder.
Is checking the computer that showed the alert enough?
No. The account, connected systems, servers, cloud resources or network segments may also be relevant. Scope the investigation based on the evidence and your environment. CISA’s 2022 advisory specifically recommends investigating connected systems and the domain controller in the threat context it describes, not as a universal step for every incident.
When should I report a suspected incident, and who should I notify?
Follow your incident-response plan and notify the designated security or IT lead promptly when activity is credible or remains unexplained. Involve leadership, legal, communications and business-continuity roles as appropriate. Legal notification duties depend on jurisdiction, sector, data and incident facts, so consult qualified counsel and relevant regulators rather than relying on a universal deadline.
Do small businesses need to keep system logs?
Logs help record who accessed what, when and from where, and provide material to review when activity looks unusual. CISA recommends logging relevant systems such as servers, firewalls, endpoint devices and cloud services, and describes Logging Made Easy as a no-cost option for collecting, storing and reviewing logs. Retain records according to organizational policy and compliance needs, and protect them from unauthorized access or deletion.
The Bottom Line
Check activity across accounts, devices, servers, cloud services and networks against what is normal for your business. Treat anomalies as leads—not proof—and do not mistake a quiet scan or incomplete logs for an all-clear. If indicators are credible, follow your incident-response plan, involve the right business and legal roles, coordinate containment and preserve evidence with qualified responders.
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