Monitoring the usage of a computer system
Dave Bailey · OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) · 1987
Controlling the usage of computer systems particularly those operated for the federal government, is an important topic today. Audit requirements have grown to the point where they can be a significant burden to the proprietors of the system. The paper briefly mentions several proposals for responding to increased audit requirements and for monitoring a system to detect unauthorized activity. A technique is proposed for situations where the proscribed or the intended activity can be characterized in terms of program or system performance parameters. The design of a usage monitoring system is outlined. The design is based on enhancing the audit data provided by the monitored system, capturing the audit data in a separate system to protect it from user access, and implementing one of the audit trail analysis systems currently under development.