audit records

Chronological logs that capture the who, what, and when of system events to ensure accountability and forensic integrity.

Audit records serve as the definitive ledger for system activity, capturing discrete events like successful logins, file access attempts, and privilege escalations. By documenting specific data points (user IDs, timestamps, source IP addresses, and outcome status), these logs allow security teams to reconstruct timelines during incident response. Compliance frameworks like SOC 2 and HIPAA mandate this granular tracking to verify that sensitive data remains protected and that every administrative action is traceable to a unique identity.

https://csrc.nist.gov/glossary/term/audit_record