USB device auditing on Windows means tracking three things: when a device connects, what files move to or from it, and whether your device-control policy stopped what it was supposed to stop. Windows can record all three. Almost none of it is enabled by default. Honeywell’s 2025 Cyber Threat Report counted 1,826 unique USB-borne threats in the first quarter of 2025 alone, including 124 that were completely new. These findings came from Secure Media Exchange scanning stations at industrial sites.

A single Windows Event Collector (WEC) server has three documented scaling limits: disk write speed, concurrent WinRM connections, and registry growth from per-client bookmark data. Microsoft’s current guidance is to plan for roughly 3,000 events per second on average across all subscriptions on commodity hardware. The "10k × 10k" rule of thumb (up to 10,000 clients and 10,000 EPS per collector) still circulates widely. IBM QRadar and Juniper JSA documentation still quote it, both attributing it to Microsoft’s article.

Windows records scheduled task activity in two separate event logs. The Security log holds event IDs 4698-4702, covering task creation, deletion, turning on, turning off, and updates, with the full task definition XML attached. The Microsoft-Windows-TaskScheduler/Operational log holds event IDs 106, 140, and 141 for registration changes, plus 100, 200, and 201 for execution. Windows doesn’t switch on either source by default: Microsoft’s own Tarrask analysis states that "neither of these are audited by default and must be explicitly turned on by an administrator.

We are happy to announce the latest release of NXLog Platform, version 1.14. This update adds an entitlements usage summary to the NXLog Platform UI and extends NXLog Agent support to the newest Ubuntu 26.04 LTS release and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 for long-lived legacy deployments. Read on for more details about these updates. See data source entitlements and usage at a glance NXLog Platform 1.14 adds entitlements usage visibility to the NXLog Platform UI, giving you a clear breakdown of how your data source license is used without contacting support.

Some of the most critical systems in your infrastructure are also the oldest. If you operate in energy, manufacturing, or government, chances are you have hosts still running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 or CentOS 5. Not because anyone forgot to upgrade them, but because upgrading them is not an option. The OS is frozen by compliance requirements, tied to certified industrial equipment, or locked to software that would break on anything newer.

You can centralize logs from firewalls, switches, and Linux hosts with a free syslog server - rsyslog, syslog-ng OSE, and the free plan of NXLog Platform all do the job. The real differences show up in Windows support, secure transport, viewers, and what happens when your environment grows. A firewall, a switch, or an auditor says "send your logs somewhere," and there’s no budget line for it. A free syslog server solves the immediate problem in an afternoon.