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A sound Active Directory audit does three things in sequence: identifies accounts that no longer need access, verifies password controls without exposing credentials, and calculates effective privilege through nested groups, delegated permissions, AdminSDHolder, and Group Policy. Treat the 90-day no-logon mark as a documented assessment threshold—not an automatic deletion rule—then validate every exception with an owner, remediate in reversible stages, and retain evidence of what changed.
Define what the audit must prove
Write the scope and decision rules before exporting data. The audit should answer four questions for every enabled identity and every high-impact permission:
- Is the account still required, and who approved its continued use?
- Are password and lockout controls strong enough for the directory that actually processes the password change?
- What access can the identity obtain indirectly through nested groups, delegated access-control entries, AdminSDHolder, or Group Policy?
- Can you detect and verify changes to privileged accounts and groups after remediation?
Separate user, service, application, seasonal, break-glass, and computer accounts in the inventory. Their ownership, usage pattern, and recovery requirements differ, so a single inactivity rule is unsafe.
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Export enabled users and the last-logon attributes available in your directory, together with password-expiration and protection fields. Record the extraction date, the domain or forest, the attribute used as the last-logon source, and the inactivity threshold. Preserve the original export so later decisions can be reproduced.
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A practical Active Directory PowerShell export, run from a system with the Active Directory module, is:
Get-ADUser -Filter 'Enabled -eq $true' -Properties LastLogonDate,PasswordLastSet,PasswordNeverExpires,adminCount | Select-Object SamAccountName,UserPrincipalName,Enabled,LastLogonDate,PasswordLastSet,PasswordNeverExpires,adminCountUse the result as an evidence source, not as an automatic action list. Last-logon data can be incomplete or interpreted differently across environments; document exactly which attribute and collection method you used. Reconcile each candidate with HR, the application owner, and the account owner before changing access.
Find and remediate stale accounts
Use a documented inactivity threshold
Microsoft Defender for Identity describes a stale Active Directory user as one that has not logged in at all during the past 90 days. That assessment excludes service accounts and accounts that are disabled or deleted. The 90-day value is therefore a defensible starting threshold, but your policy may require a different period for seasonal work, contractors, or regulated systems.
For each enabled account at or beyond the threshold, record the last-logon value, data source, owner, department, business purpose, and exception reason. An absent or old timestamp is a signal for review, not proof that the account is abandoned. A service account may authenticate only when a scheduled job runs; a break-glass account may be intentionally unused; and a seasonal account may be dormant between operating periods.
Validate before disabling
- Send the candidate list to the named owner and the responsible application or service team.
- Check whether the identity is used by scheduled tasks, services, scripts, integrations, emergency procedures, or seasonal operations.
- Document the business justification for retaining any account and assign an owner and review date.
- For accounts with no valid owner or purpose, obtain the change approval required by your access-management policy.
Disable, monitor, then remove
Disable confirmed-unused accounts first and place them in a monitored quarantine period. Record the disablement time, ticket, approver, and rollback path. Watch authentication logs, service health, scheduled jobs, and user reports during the period. If no legitimate dependency appears, remove the account according to your retention and legal-hold policy; never delete solely because a timestamp is old.
Keep disabled objects long enough to support investigation and recovery. If an owner later demonstrates a valid need, re-enable only through the normal approval process and reassess group membership, password state, and multifactor requirements before restoring use.
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Audit password controls without seeing passwords
Review the policy that applies
In Active Directory Users and Computers or Group Policy Management, review the domain Account Policies > Password Policy and every fine-grained password policy. Capture the configured minimum length, complexity requirement, password history, maximum age, lockout threshold, lockout duration, and any setting that permits passwords not to expire. Identify which policy applies to each population rather than assuming the domain default governs every user.
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Assess weak-password exposure safely
Do not request, export, hash for review, or otherwise handle users’ plaintext passwords. A defensible assessment combines:
- Configured length, complexity, history, aging, and lockout results.
- Accounts with password expiration disabled or otherwise exempted.
- Microsoft Entra banned-password protection, including the global banned list, an organization-specific banned list, complexity categories, and prevention of immediate password reuse where those controls apply.
- Authentication telemetry showing guessing, spraying, repeated failures, legacy authentication, or unusual success patterns.
- An approved password-audit tool that tests exposure without disclosing credentials or retaining recoverable passwords.
Microsoft describes strong password policy as protection against both manual and automated guessing. Treat policy exceptions as findings: name the owner, explain the operational reason, and specify compensating controls such as a managed service identity, restricted logon locations, shorter review intervals, or additional monitoring. Do not claim that a policy setting proves every existing password is strong; it establishes the control requirements and the evidence you can safely collect.
Check password-related attributes
Use directory reporting to flag non-expiring passwords, unusually old password-set dates, disabled accounts that still retain privileged groups, and identities exempted from a fine-grained policy. Correlate these results with owner and service inventories. A non-expiring password on a tightly scoped service identity is a different risk from the same setting on an interactive administrator, but both require documented ownership and review.
Map excessive privilege by effective access
Direct membership in Domain Admins is only one path to power. Enumerate direct and transitive membership, then inspect delegated permissions and Group Policy assignments that can produce the same outcome.
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Start with protected and operator groups
Review membership in the following high-impact groups and any domain-specific administrative groups:
| Group | Why it matters | Audit question |
|---|---|---|
| Administrators | Broad local or domain administrative capability, depending on the object and context. | Who can add members, and where can those members administer systems? |
| Domain Admins | Control over domain resources and configuration. | Is each member’s role current, approved, and necessary? |
| Enterprise Admins | Forest-wide administrative reach. | Are memberships limited to exceptional, time-bound duties? |
| Schema Admins | Ability to change the forest schema. | Are members present only for an approved schema operation? |
| Account Operators | Delegated ability to manage many account objects. | Can a member alter accounts outside the team’s assigned scope? |
| Backup Operators | Backup privileges can expose or restore sensitive data. | Are backup rights constrained to the systems and tasks required? |
| Server Operators | Operational control over designated servers and services. | Does the role still match the operator’s current duties? |
| Print Operators | Legacy operator rights may be broader than expected. | Is the group still needed, and are its members still justified? |
Microsoft identifies these as protected or high-impact groups. Export each group’s recursive membership and retain the path that explains how a user inherits access. A user who is not a direct member may still reach a privileged group through several nested groups.
Inspect nested groups and delegated ACLs
For every privileged identity, calculate effective access rather than reading only the direct group list. Review access-control entries on organizational units, groups, Group Policy Objects, and sensitive directory objects. Flag principals that can add members, reset passwords, write security descriptors, or modify GPOs beyond their job need.
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Audit AdminSDHolder and protected objects separately
AdminSDHolder protects sensitive accounts and groups by applying a security descriptor through SDProp. By default, SDProp runs about every 60 minutes on the PDC Emulator and reapplies the AdminSDHolder descriptor. Protected objects do not inherit permissions from their parent organizational unit, so an OU-level permission review can miss their effective rights.
Inspect the AdminSDHolder object, the adminCount or protected-object population, and the source of every unexpected permission. Microsoft specifically identifies non-sensitive accounts that retain AdminSDHolder rights as a privilege-escalation risk. Do not simply edit a protected object and assume the change will persist: determine whether SDProp will overwrite it, correct the source object or group, and verify the result after the next processing cycle.
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Review Group Policy reach
Use Group Policy Management to list GPO links, security filtering, delegation, and settings that place broad principals such as Authenticated Users or Everyone into local Administrators or Remote Desktop Users. Also identify GPOs that unprivileged identities can modify, link, or unlink. A GPO edit or link change can affect many computers at once, so treat write and delegation rights as privileged access even when the principal is not in a built-in administrator group.
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For each finding, document the GPO, linked scope, security principal, setting, affected systems, and the shortest escalation path. Remove broad assignments only after confirming the intended administrative workflow and testing the replacement scope.
Handle Protected Users and hybrid identity carefully
Protected Users group
Microsoft describes Protected Users as a credential-theft protection group that requires AES for Kerberos. Do not add service accounts or computer accounts. Test application compatibility before enrolling privileged human users because older authentication methods or applications may fail. Microsoft documents a 240-minute maximum ticket lifetime and renewal behavior for Protected Users members; include that operational effect in change planning and incident troubleshooting.
On-premises and cloud control boundaries
For hybrid environments, label every finding as on-premises AD DS, Microsoft Entra, or synchronized behavior. A cloud banned-password control and an on-premises fine-grained policy may both be relevant, but they do not automatically enforce the same event. Record where the password is changed, which directory evaluates the rule, and which telemetry proves compliance.
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Do not rank findings by a single column such as inactivity or group membership. Prioritize combinations that create a credible attack path: a stale or weakly protected credential with broad effective privilege, a delegated right to modify a privileged group, or the ability to change a widely linked GPO or security descriptor.
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| Remediation candidate | Questions to score | Typical first action |
|---|---|---|
| Enabled account with no logon for the threshold | How reliable is the inactivity evidence? Is there a validated owner or exception? | Document owner decision, then disable during a monitored quarantine period. |
| Interactive account with weak password controls | Does it have non-expiring status, old password metadata, guessing telemetry, or privileged access? | Require a compliant password change and remove unnecessary privilege; investigate suspicious authentication. |
| Service or application account | What process depends on it, and can the credential be rotated without outage? | Confirm owner, scope logon rights, and plan a tested credential or identity transition. |
| Nested membership in a high-impact group | Which group path grants access, and is each link still required? | Remove the unnecessary link, then verify effective membership after replication. |
| AdminSDHolder or protected-object anomaly | Is the permission intentional, and will SDProp reapply it? | Correct the source descriptor or membership and verify after the next SDProp cycle. |
| GPO write, link, or broad local-admin assignment | How many computers are affected, and can the principal alter security settings? | Restrict delegation or filtering, test the replacement, and review resulting local membership. |
For every change, capture reversibility, outage risk, business owner, approval, and verification criteria. A reversible disablement is usually safer than immediate deletion; a GPO permission change may require a staged rollout because its reach is broad.
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Monitor privileged changes continuously
Auditing is not complete when the initial cleanup ends. Enable and retain auditing for changes to privileged account attributes and membership of Administrators, Domain Admins, Enterprise Admins, and Schema Admins. Restrict who can modify those accounts and monitor the changes, as Microsoft recommends.
Alert on unexpected additions, removals, password resets, changes to delegation, AdminSDHolder permissions, GPO security filtering, GPO links, and security-descriptor writes. Tie each alert to a change ticket or owner approval. A dated evidence package should contain:
- The exported account inventory, extraction date, last-logon source, and threshold.
- Password-policy and fine-grained-policy results, non-expiring exceptions, banned-password controls, and relevant authentication telemetry.
- Direct and transitive group membership, delegated ACL analysis, AdminSDHolder findings, and GPO assignments.
- Owner decisions, exception justifications, approvals, remediation tickets, disablement dates, and deletion or retention decisions.
- Verification results, including post-change membership, ACL, GPO, and monitoring checks.
Common audit mistakes and recovery steps
Deleting from a timestamp alone
Recovery: restore the account if policy and retention allow, identify the owner and dependent services, and replace the timestamp-only rule with owner validation and a quarantine period.
Testing passwords by collecting them
Recovery: stop collection, secure or destroy exposed data according to incident procedures, and switch to policy, expiration, banned-password, telemetry, and approved non-disclosing audit methods.
Checking only direct Domain Admins membership
Recovery: expand nested groups recursively, inspect delegated ACLs, and trace rights to GPOs, security descriptors, and sensitive objects.
Editing a protected object without checking SDProp
Recovery: identify the AdminSDHolder source, correct the originating permission or membership, and verify after SDProp has run.
Adding service accounts to Protected Users
Recovery: remove the account if compatibility has not been proven, restore the required authentication path through an approved change, and test the application before considering any future enrollment.
Changing a widely linked GPO without measuring scope
Recovery: review links and security filtering, roll back if necessary, test in a limited scope, and reapply the least-privilege delegation with documented approval.
Audit completion criteria
Close the audit only when every enabled account has an owner or a recorded exception, every stale candidate has a documented disposition, password controls are mapped to the authoritative directory, effective privilege paths have been reviewed, protected-object behavior has been accounted for, and privileged changes generate retained evidence. Re-run the inventory and privilege checks after remediation so the final report demonstrates the state that actually remains, not merely the changes that were requested.
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