Windows Security Log Event ID 4912

Operating Systems Windows 2008 R2 and 7
Windows 2012 R2 and 8.1
Windows 2016 and 10
Windows Server 2019 and 2022
Category
 • Subcategory
Policy Change
 • Audit Policy Change
Type Success
Corresponding events
in Windows 2003
and before
807  

4912: Per User Audit Policy was changed

On this page

When you use auditpol to set per user selective auditing Windows logs this event documenting the user for whom you set audit policy as well as the category, subcategory and the nature of the change in terms of success/failure and include/exclude.

To learn more about per-user selective auditing see See Roger Grimes article at www.windowsitpro.com for an excellent introduction to per user selective auditing.  But don't get your hopes up; it isn't a very practical feature; basically it's just there for Common Criteria compliance.

The user and logon session that performed the action. 

  • Security ID:  The SID of the account.
  • Account Name: The account logon name.
  • Account Domain: The domain or - in the case of local accounts - computer name.
  • Logon ID is a semi-unique (unique between reboots) number that identifies the logon session.  Logon ID allows you to correlate backwards to the logon event (4624) as well as with other events logged during the same logon session.

According to Microsoft, this event is always logged when an audit policy is disabled, regardless of the "Audit Policy Change" sub-category setting. This and several other events can help identify when someone attempts to disable auditing to cover their tracks.

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Description Fields in 4912

Policy For Account:

  • Security ID:  SID of the account for whom selective auditing was configured 

Policy Change Details:

  • Category: one of the 9 top level audit policy categories
  • Subcategory: one of the 40+ subcategories configured with auditpol 

Subcategory GUID: globally unique identifier of the subcategory
Changes: Success/Failure include/excluded added

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Examples of 4912

Per User Audit Policy was changed.

Subject:

   Security ID:  WIN-R9H529RIO4Y\Administrator
   Account Name:  Administrator
   Account Domain:  WIN-R9H529RIO4Y
   Logon ID:  0x1ba0e

Policy For Account:

   Security ID:  S-1-5-21-3108364787-189202583-342365621-1002

Policy Change Details:

   Category: System
   Subcategory: Security State Change
   Subcategory GUID: {0cce9210-69ae-11d9-bed3-505054503030}
   Changes: Success include added

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