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Audit Logging Essentials: MFT Gateway Auditing for Traceability & Compliance
SEnhance security and meet regulatory standards with MFT Gateway auditing. Learn the audit logging essentials for achieving true traceability and compliance in your file transfers.
Samadhi Kariyawasam
Published: 11 Sep 2025
In today’s digital landscape, organizations exchange vast amounts of sensitive information with other parties, such as business partners, authorities, etc. Whether it’s financial data, intellectual property, or customer information, secure and compliant file transfers are a must. MFT Gateway facilitates these secure file transfers between partners with the use of the AS2 protocol.
But beyond the transfer itself, one often overlooked yet crucial element is audit logging. Audit logs in MFT gateways are not just technical records, they’re the backbone of accountability, compliance, and operational visibility. Let’s explore why audit logs matter, what they should include, and how they enhance security, compliance, and traceability.
Why Audit Logs Matter in MFT Gateway
Every organization faces increasing scrutiny around how it handles sensitive data. Security compliance often demands clear accountability and traceability in file operations. Audit logs provide this visibility by:
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Recording Events: Every login attempt, file transfer, or configuration change is logged, ensuring nothing happens unnoticed.
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Enhancing Accountability: By tying actions to users, teams can clearly see who did what and when.
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Supporting Compliance: Regulatory auditors frequently ask for evidence of secure file handling; audit logs provide that proof.
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Aiding Investigations: In the event of a breach or system issue, logs act like a forensic trail, helping pinpoint the root cause.
Simply put, without robust audit logging, secure file transfers lack the transparency needed to meet modern compliance and security standards.
Audit Logs in MFT Gateway
The MFT Gateway ensures that every message sent and every configuration change is comprehensively captured within its audit logs. This meticulous recording guarantees that no action goes unnoticed and every modification is fully accounted for. By maintaining a complete trail of activities, the system not only strengthens accountability but also provides organizations with the transparency they need for security reviews, troubleshooting, and compliance audits.
Common Audit Log Scenarios in MFT Gateway
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Session Management*
Every login and logout action in the MFT Gateway is recorded, along with the associated username. In addition, certain types of login failures are also captured in the audit logs, ensuring that unsuccessful access attempts are traceable. Even logout failures are logged, providing a complete picture of user session activity.
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Partner/Station creation, modification, and deletion
The MFT Gateway records all partner/station management activities in its audit logs. When a new partner/station is created, the system logs the event along with the associated configuration details of the entity. Any modifications to a artner/station are logged with both the old and new values, ensuring full visibility of changes over time. Similarly, when a partner/station is deleted, the deleted partner’s configuration is captured in the logs, preserving a record of the removal for accountability and traceability.
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Tenant creation and update
Similarly, tenant-related events are fully captured in the audit logs. When a tenant is created, the event is recorded along with its configuration details. Any updates to an existing tenant are also logged, with both the old and new values included.
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Certificate creation, renewal, and deletion
MFT Gateway also maintains detailed audit records for all certificate-related activities. When a new certificate is created or imported, the event is logged along with the certificate’s key attributes. Certificate renewals are recorded with both the old and updated values, ensuring a transparent history of changes. Likewise, certificate deletions are logged with the relevant certificate details preserved, providing a clear audit trail of its removal.
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Enabling/disabling integrations, changes to configurations
MFT Gateways offers various integrations like S3 integration, SFTP integration, and webhook integration to help automate the file exchange process. For integration relation activities like enabling integrations, disabling integrations, and changes to the configurations are also captured with audit logs.
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Message events
Beyond configuration changes, MFT Gateway records message-sending and deletion activities, ensuring accountability for these message operations.
How audit logs enhance security, accountability, and traceability in MFT Gateway
Audit logging in MFT Gateway is more than just record-keeping, it is a critical security, traceability, and compliance tool to ensure organizational accountability.
Every action within the MFT Gateway, from logins to file transfers and configuration changes, is logged. This continuous visibility helps organizations prevent misuse actions tied to specific users, create accountability, discourage malicious behavior, and support incident response. In case of a security breach, logs provide a forensic trail; this allows users to identify root causes in case of an incident and take corrective action.
📑 Ensuring Traceability
Traceability means knowing exactly who did what, when, and how. MFT Gateway audit logs provide a complete trail of activities, including partner creation, certificate management, message sending, and deletion. This enables operational transparency, teams can monitor every system change and message transfer; problem diagnosis, logs help pinpoint the source of errors or failures; and historical tracking a detailed record of past activities ensures accountability over time.
🔏 Supporting Compliance
Regulatory standards such as GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI-DSS require organizations to demonstrate secure handling of sensitive information. Audit logs help meet these requirements by providing proof for audits. Showing that data access, transfers, and configuration changes are properly monitored, documenting actions over time maintaining a tamper-proof record of events for legal and regulatory purposes.
In Conclusion
Audit logs make every action in the MFT Gateway easy to track and understand. They work as a shield by spotting and preventing unauthorized activities and as a map by showing exactly what happened, when, and by whom. By keeping complete, secure, and tamper-proof logs, organizations can stay secure, be accountable, and meet regulatory requirements with confidence.
Samadhi is a Software Engineer at Aayu Technologies with around 1 year experience in the company during which she worked in various Aayu products. She specializes in Full Stack Development with a strong focus on B2B communication software and Cloud Technologies. Outside of work she enjoys watching a movie or a TV show or going on a shopping spree with friends.
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