Which concept involves monitoring and recording user activities in a system?

The concept that involves monitoring and recording user activities within a system is accounting. In the context of cybersecurity and information systems, accounting, often referred to as "audit logging," entails the tracking of user interactions with the system, documenting who accessed what resources and when, as well as what actions were performed. This is crucial for auditing, compliance, and forensic analysis, as it provides visibility into user activities enabling organizations to identify unauthorized access or malicious behavior.

By implementing robust accounting measures, organizations can create an audit trail that can help in investigating security incidents, measuring system usage, and ensuring that policies are being followed. This aspect is vital to maintaining overall security and accountability within an information system.

In contrast to accounting, authorization refers to the permissions granted to a user for accessing certain resources, authentication is the process of verifying a user's identity, and access control encompasses the overall mechanisms used to restrict access to resources. While all these concepts are key components of a secure system, accounting specifically focuses on the logging and monitoring of user activities.