FAQs
Have Questions?
What does an Active Directory audit include?
A full AD audit covers domain controller health, account inventory, group memberships and nesting, group policy objects, delegation, password and lockout policies, Kerberos settings, and the security posture of privileged accounts. For hybrid environments, the audit also covers the Entra ID Connect configuration and sync rules between on-prem and cloud.
How do you handle stale accounts you find?
The audit identifies and ranks stale accounts by inactivity period and privilege level. CinchOps does not disable accounts during an audit. The remediation work, including disabling, moving to an archive OU, or deleting, gets reviewed with the customer and scheduled separately. The audit produces the evidence, the customer authorizes the action.
Do you audit Entra ID separately from on-prem AD?
For hybrid environments, the two are audited together because the security posture depends on both. Entra ID Connect rules, password hash sync settings, hybrid join health, and the alignment between on-prem groups and cloud groups all get reviewed as one assessment. Cloud-only tenants get an Entra-ID-focused version of the audit.
How long does an AD and Entra ID audit take?
Most Houston small and mid-sized business directories take one to three weeks for a complete audit. Smaller, single-domain environments are toward the lower end. Larger directories with multiple domains, complex group nesting, or a long history of mergers and changes can run longer. The deliverable is a written report with prioritized remediation.
What changes can we expect to see after remediation?
Most directories come out of remediation with a smaller, cleaner account inventory, simpler group structure, documented service account ownership, fewer privileged accounts, and a hybrid sync configuration that matches current business needs. The cleanup also makes future audits faster and incident response more reliable because the directory is finally describable.
