Server Security Monitoring with PRTG

Server security monitoring is the continuous process of tracking, analyzing, and assessing the security of a server to ensure it is protected from unauthorized access, attacks, or other malicious activities. The goal of server security monitoring is to detect security incidents early, respond quickly, and prevent potential threats from compromising the server or the data it hosts.

Key aspects of server security monitoring include:

• Server management and monitoring: Monitoring different types of servers (cloud servers, physical servers, web servers, Linux servers, Windows operating system servers) in real-time to detect anomalies, unauthorized access attempts, and malicious activities. This often involves using server monitoring tools to check logs, network traffic, and system performance.
• Log analysis: Collecting and analyzing server log files (such as access logs, error logs, and system logs) to identify suspicious activities like failed login attempts, unusual patterns of access, or changes to files and configurations.
• Vulnerability scanning: Regularly scanning the server to identify potential vulnerabilities, such as outdated software, misconfigurations, or open ports that could be exploited by attackers.
• File integrity monitoring: Tracking changes to critical system files and configurations to ensure that unauthorized modifications have not occurred. This helps to detect malware or other forms of compromise.
• Access control and authentication monitoring: Keeping track of user login attempts, especially failed attempts or access from unusual locations, to detect brute force attacks or unauthorized access.
• Network traffic monitoring: Monitoring network traffic to and from the server, looking for unusual spikes, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, or unauthorized data exfiltration attempts.

Yes. Whether you have just a few servers or a gigantic server farm, PRTG adapts to the size of your server landscape. With PRTG’s powerful auto-discovery feature, even virtual servers are recognized automatically and incorporated into your monitoring environment.

No. Antivirus software should always be installed to defend against viruses and other malware. However, PRTG can keep an eye on the availability and functionality of your antivirus software and thus ensure that it does its job.

Yes. PRTG includes server room monitoring and helps you protect your server room from threats and damage due to unauthorized access or fluctuations in temperature and humidity. PRTG provides sensors that constantly monitor the health of your important servers and hardware, protecting your server room from power interruptions, malfunctioning air conditioners, smoke, and fire.

In PRTG, “sensors” are the basic monitoring elements. One sensor usually monitors one measured value in your network, for example the traffic of a switch port, the CPU load of a server, or the free space on a disk drive. On average, you need about 5-10 sensors per device or one sensor per switch port.