Which of the following features improves security by tracking user access?

Monitoring is crucial for enhancing security, as it involves continuously observing user activities and access patterns within a system. This feature allows organizations to keep track of who accesses sensitive data, when they access it, and what actions they take. By maintaining logs of user activity, monitoring helps in identifying unauthorized access attempts, understanding user behavior, and recognizing potential security threats in real-time.

Moreover, effective monitoring contributes to compliance with regulatory requirements by ensuring that all user interactions are documented and can be audited. This becomes essential in mitigating risks and responding promptly to incidents, thereby strengthening the overall security posture of an organization.

While data backup, encryption, and authentication are essential components of a comprehensive security strategy, they do not directly focus on tracking user access in the same manner that monitoring does. Data backup protects information against loss, encryption secures data from unauthorized access during storage and transmission, and authentication ensures that only legitimate users can access a system. Monitoring ties all these elements together by providing insights into how and when these security mechanisms are utilized.