audit trail

1. A record of both completed and attempted accesses and service.
2. Data in the form of a logical path linking a sequence of events, used to trace the transactions that have affected the contents of a record.
3. [In INFOSEC, a] chronological record of system activities to enable the reconstruction and examination of the sequence of events and/or changes in an event. Note: Audit trail may apply to information in an information system (IS), to message routing in a communications system, or to the transfer of COMSEC material. [INFOSEC-99]
4. The set of records generated by a system in response to accounting operations, providing the basis for audit [CESG].
5. See Security Audit Trail [7498-2].
6. The destination of audit records that are recorded, and the source of records read by an audit post-processing application [POSIX.6].
7. A set of records that collectively provide documentary evidence of processing used to aid in tracing from original transactions forward to related records and reports, and/or backwards from records and reports to their component source transactions [TCSEC].