Windows NTFS Permission Auditing & Reporting Tools and Software (Active Directory, Shares, Files/Folder, etc)

Many times, managers and compliance auditors ask IT administrators to give a report listing file share permissions granted to different individuals and groups.

Though this may sound overarching, in reality, it is necessary to protect the critical resources of an organization.

When any individual or group is given excess rights and permissions to access all files and folders, it can lead to unwarranted changes to files or inappropriate access. Such actions could end up being perilous to organizations.

This is why it is important to audit NTFS permissions and IT administrators should send compliance reports on access and permissions given to different users to access files and folders.

From an IT administrator’s point of view, this constant reporting and monitoring is a tedious and time-consuming job, and this is why it helps to have Windows NTFS permission reporting tools.

Here’s the Top Windows NTFS Permission Auditing & Reporting Tools & Software of 2019:

Here is a look at some of the best Windows NTFS permission reporting tools that you can use to provide the necessary compliance and reporting.

1. Solarwinds Access Rights Manager

Solarwinds Access Right Manager is a simple and useful tool to manage and audit user access throughout your IT infrastructure.

Features

The salient features of Solarwinds Access Rights Manager are:

• Monitors, analyzes and audits Active Directory and Group Policy, so IT administrators can stay on top of who has accessed what resources, and the date and time of this access.
• Presents a visual picture of permissions on file servers. This way, it is easy to prevent data leaks and unauthorized access or changes to sensitive data.
• Tracks changes to mailboxes, folders, calendars and public folders.
• Makes it easy to detect changes in Exchange server and to improve the compliance associated with it.
• You can set up and manage new user accounts within just a few minutes, using standard role specific templates.
• Helps to analyze user access to services and file servers to mitigate internal security threats.
• Creates and generates reports needed for compliance.
• At any time, you can see log activities in Active Directory and file servers.
• A web-based self-permissions portal makes it easy for owners to decide who should access their files and folders. This way, owners can delegate permissions and help reduce IT workload.
• Automatically identifies accounts that are insecure
• Simple to use and is ideal for organizations of all sizes.

Pricing

Free 30 Day Fully Functional Trial – Download to Get Started Below!

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2. Permissions Analyzer for Active Directory (Free)

Permissions Analyzer for Active Directory is a free tool from Solarwinds that provides instant visibility into user and group permissions.

Features

The salient features of this tool are:

• Provides real-time visibility into user and group permissions.
• Works well on Active Directory, network shares, folders and files.
• Quickly identifies how user permissions are inherited
• You can browse through permissions by group or individual user.
• Analyzes user permissions based on group membership and permissions.

Pricing

100% Free Forever!

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3. CJWDEV

CJWDEV is a powerful tool to view NTFS permissions all the way through your entire directory tree.

Features

The important features of CJWDEV are:

• Ideal for reporting directory permissions on Windows file server.
• Provides visibility into which groups and users have access to which files and directories.
• Its highly customizable filtering system makes it easy to search for the user or group you want. You can filter the results based on a host of attributes such as account name, account type, domain, nature of permission, inherited permissions, account status and so much more.
• Displays results in a tree or table based format.
• Highlights different permissions in different colors to easily identify the information you want.
• Makes it easy to identify rogue permissions that are not in accordance with the established standards and policies of the organization. In turn, this feature makes it easy to identify insider attacks.

Editions

There are two editions, namely, free and standard edition.

Free edition

The free edition is meant to act as a trial of the standard edition, and hence, its features are a subset of what is found in the standard edition. The features in free edition include,

• Intelligent caching makes this tool one of the fastest in the industry today.
• Provides options to view group members directly in the report itself.
• You can right-click on any directory in Windows and choose “Report Permissions” to see all the available permissions for that directory.
• Information provided is accurate and reliable.
• You can easily export the results to HTML format.
• Displays names and other account details for accounts in external trusted domains.

Standard edition

Standard edition contains all the features in free edition plus the following.

• Allows you to export results to many file formats such as CSV, HTML, NTPR and XLSX.
• Gives you the flexibility to compare two reports to know the differences in permission levels
• Emails report automatically to the set email IDs
• Create filters to help you find what you want. You even have the option to exclude certain permissions.
• Full command line support makes it easy to schedule reports for your convenience.
• You can load your favorite settings every time you launch the application
• Free upgrades to new versions through the entire lifetime of the product.

Pricing

The free edition is 100% free with no hidden costs whatsoever whereas the standard edition costs $149 for a single user license, $359 for a site license, $579 for an enterprise license, $199 for a consultant license and $620 for an unlimited consultant license.

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4. ManageEngine ADManager Plus

ADManager Plus is a tool that generates reports and exports the same in an easily understandable format. it gives IT administrators greater control over permissions and file access.

Features

The features of ManageEngine ADManager Plus are:

• Displays all the shares available in specified servers, along with important details such as locations, scope, list of accounts and more.
• Lists the folders and files over which a specific user or group has permissions to access.
• Gives a list of folders and files protected from inheritable permissions.
• Comes with more than 150 pre-defined reports on Active Directory, Exchange, Office 365 and G Suite.
• Generates reports that make it easy to comply with different compliances and audits.
• Cleans up unwanted, inactive and obsolete objects in Active Directory.
• Automates many critical tasks of AD such as user provisioning.
• Helps IT administrators to stay on top of file-level security settings in their environment.

Pricing

There are three editions, namely, Free, Standard and Professional. The pricing depends on the edition you choose and the number of technicians you would like to have for each license. The free edition is 100% free and gives you a good feel of what to expect from the Standard and Professional versions.

ADManager Plus Standard Edition (Annual Subscription)

• 1 Domain (Unrestricted Objects) with 2 help desk Technicians – US$595
• 1 Domain (Unrestricted Objects) with 5 help desk Technicians – US$1,195
• 1 Domain (Unrestricted Objects) with 10 help desk Technicians – US$2,145
• 1 Domain (Unrestricted Objects) with 20 help desk Technicians – US$3,345
• 1 Domain (Unrestricted Objects) with 50 help desk Technicians – US$5,995
• 1 Domain (Unrestricted Objects) with 100 help desk Technicians – US$7,795
• 1 Domain (Unrestricted Objects) with 200 help desk Technicians – US$10,795
• 1 Domain (Unrestricted Objects) with 500 help desk Technicians – US$11,995
• Additional 1 Domain – US$345

ADManager Plus Professional Edition (Annual Subscription)

• 1 Domain (Unrestricted Objects) – US$945
• 1 Domain (Unrestricted Objects) with 2 help desk Technicians – US$1,795
• 1 Domain (Unrestricted Objects) with 5 help desk Technicians – US$3,345
• 1 Domain (Unrestricted Objects) with 10 help desk Technicians – US$5,395
• 1 Domain (Unrestricted Objects) with 20 help desk Technicians – US$7,795
• 1 Domain (Unrestricted Objects) with 50 help desk Technicians – US$10,795
• 1 Domain (Unrestricted Objects) with 100 help desk Technicians – US$11,995
• 1 Domain (Unrestricted Objects) with 200 help desk Technicians – US$15,595
• 1 Domain (Unrestricted Objects) with 500 help desk Technicians – US$17,995
• Additional 1 Domain – US$595

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6. TreeSize

TreeSize from Jam Software is a reporting tool that helps you to create fast, clear and compact reports about access permissions on all files and folders of a scanned directory.

Features

The features of TreeSize are:

• Displays all inherited permissions on folders
• Shows the folder access permissions for different users and groups.
• Provides a clear and compact overview.
• Indicates explicitly the type of rights (read, write or delete) that each user has for each directory, folder or file.
• Exports all data to Excel, HTML, XML or text file.
• Allows you to create special reports that will be used in security audits.
• Comes with an integrated file search
• Includes or excludes certain files and folders in your scan, based on your preferences.
• Offers scheduled scans of your hard disk and the generation of reports overnight.
• Provides full NTFS support such as file-based NTFS compression.
• Tracks growth of files and folders.
• Efficiently manages existing disk space.
• Compatible with Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

Pricing

Pricing depends on license.

• Single license – 46,95 €
• 5 license pack – 159,95 €
• 10 license pack – 279,95 €
• 25 license pack – 519,00 €
• Site license – 1599,00 €

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7. AlbusBit

AlbusBit is a NTFS Permissions Auditor that allows you to verify, analyze and review NTFS permissions.

Features

AlbusBit comes with the following features.

• Easy to set up and get started.
• Advanced filters that even come with ‘And’ / ‘Or’ usage.
• You can search by department, position, manager, username, permission access type, domain name, domain SID, account name, account SID, inherited permissions and so much more.
• Makes it easy to see users, groups and the rights and directories for each user.
• Its optimized caching mechanism gives you fast and efficient results.
• You can export to many file formats such as CSV, HTML, XML and PDF.
• Gives a hierarchical folder view for an easy viewing experience.
• Allows you to exclude certain directories and users.
• All data is stored in the local database, so no additional setup is necessary.
• Uses RAM and CPU efficiently to prevent overloading of resources.
• Change reports make it easy to see what has changed between two reports.

Pricing

There are two editions – free and Pro. The Free version costs nothing whereas the Pro version starts at $149.

Free version	Pro version
Audit an unlimited number of directories	Yes	Yes
Folder tree view	Yes	Yes
Account view	Yes	Yes
Export reports to CSV, Excel (XLSX), HTML, XML and PDF files	Yes (Max 500 rows)
Customize export fields	No	Yes
Advanced filtering during audit	No	Yes
Advanced filtering after audit	No	Yes
Automatic audit result storage	No	Yes
Change reports – compare two audit results and see what has changed	No	Yes
Guaranteed updates and bug fixes	No	Yes
Priority customer support	No	Yes

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8. Vyapin NTFS Security Auditor

Vyapin NTFS Security Auditor is a tool to audit, control, analyze and manage your file security. It is one of the most efficient software for collecting information on file access and permissions because it uses native Windows API calls whenever appropriate.

Overall, it is a powerful software that gives you complete control and flexibility to audit NTFS permissions and report the same for compliance and security.

Features

The features of Vyapin NTFS Security Auditor are as follows.

• Helps you stay on top of who has access to what in your NTFS file system.
• Reports NTFS permissions on different files, folders and shares.
• Performs a complete security scan of your files, folders and shares.
• Comes with many reporting templates that are simple, comprehensive and completely customizable.
• Has many ready-to-use reports that help with both management and compliance reporting requirements.
• Uses powerful scan options to meaningfully segment your network for reporting and data collection.
• Makes it easy to report NTFS permissions in multiple domains.
• Analyzes inadvertent user access possibilities.
• Performs a granular search of various types of permissions and their exceptions.
• Does not require any agent installation as the necessary information is collected and displayed on the same machine where the tool is installed.
• Supports MS-Access and SQL Server
• Performs powerful and conditional search queries on permissions.
• Enumerates computers using Active Directory or Windows Browser Service.
• Reports vulnerabilities as they occur in access rights and permissions.

Pricing

The cost of Vyapin NTFS Permissions Reporting tool is $399 for one server for a period of three months. For this same period, the cost is $599 for three servers, $899 for five servers and $1,199 for 10 servers. If you want a subscription for more than 10 servers, contact the sales team for custom quote.

To get a perpetual license, the cost is $499 for one server, $749 for three servers, $949 for five servers and $1,599 for ten servers respectively.

If you want to buy the license for just one year, the cost is $598 for one server, $1,498 for three servers, $1,898 for five servers and $3,198 for ten servers respectively.

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9. DSRAZOR for Windows

DSRAZOR for Windows is a NTFS reporting and managing tool from a company called Visual Click Software. This tool audits file permissions and generates reports that are east to read and understand.

Features

The features of DSRAZOR for Windows are:

• Runs detailed reports for ACL documentation, blocked inheritance, orphaned SID trustees and more.
• Gives you the choice to customize file permission reports.
• Finds and removes unwanted NTFS file security permissions.
• Provides ownership details of any file or folder.
• Allows you to search based on a wide range of specific parameters.
• Reports disk space usage for servers and workstations
• Lists files that are unused for a specific period of time.
• Finds duplicate files.
• Adds, removes and modifies explicit trustee permissions.
• Removes file system access control entry (ACE) from ACL
• Discovers how file permissions were obtained.
• Lists files with orphaned SID (no owner is defined).

Pricing

This comprehensive NTFS reporting tool is priced at $500 per year.

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Conclusion

To conclude, reporting on NTFS permissions and access is essential for internal security as it can go a long way in preventing insider attacks and thefts. But, it can be a nightmare for IT administrators because staying on top of permissions for each and every file is an almost impossible task. To help IT administrators to have complete control over NTFS file system, there are many reporting tools that analyze permissions and generate easy-to-read reports that are also compliance friendly. The above list includes some of the best NTFS permission reporting tools that can make life easy for IT administrators without ever compromising on security.

Paul is an Avid Tech Geek who Loves writing, Cycling and All Things Linux! He comes from a Background of Windows Administration along with Ubuntu/Centos Server administration. Paul holds industry wide certifications include CompTIA & Microsoft Accredited certifications.