Sophos Certified Engineer Practice Exam

Which log provides a record of all activities?

1. Event log

2. Audit log

3. Access log

4. System log

The correct answer is: Audit log

The audit log is designed to provide a comprehensive record of all activities within a system. It captures a variety of events and actions taken by users, administrators, and the system itself. The purpose of the audit log is to maintain a detailed history that can be used for monitoring, compliance, and forensic investigation, which are critical aspects of security management. While other logs, such as the event log, access log, and system log, serve important purposes, they generally focus on more specific types of information. The event log might track significant system events, the access log records who accessed what and when, and the system log captures system-level events and operational statuses. In contrast, the audit log consolidates these various interactions into a single resource, emphasizing accountability and traceability of actions taken within the system. Thus, it is the most comprehensive log for monitoring activities overall.