Microsoft Active Directory (Devices)

The AD Connector bridges Active Directory and Qualys CSAM by automatically synchronizing computer asset data from your directory infrastructure into a centralized inventory system. Security teams gain visibility into their AD-managed assets without manual data entry, enabling faster asset discovery and reducing blind spots in infrastructure visibility. The connector supports flexible scheduling and filtering capabilities, allowing teams to control which assets are tracked based on organizational needs. By integrating AD data with CSAM's asset identification rules, security practitioners can deduplicate records and maintain accurate inventory for vulnerability management and compliance workflows.

Configure AD Collector Connector

To create an Active Directory Collector Connector, follow the steps below:

1. Go to the Connector application and navigate to Integrations.

2. In Marketplace, search for Active Directory, and then select Add to Account. 

After you add it, the Active Directory connector appears in My Connectors.  

3. Select Manage Connections. The connector creation wizard opens. 

4. Click Create Connection. 

5. In the Basic Details screen, provide the required details:

    Connector Name - Name of the connector.

    Description – Description of the connector.

    CAMS appliance – Select the appliance you have created on the Appliance tab, which queries the AD data. To learn more about creating an appliance, refer to  the Appliance guide.

The appliance must be in Active state to be visible in the CAMS appliance dropdown.

     Modules to Enabled - Select the Qualys service the connector will have access to.

      a. CSAM - Select CSAM to pass the Connector information to the CSAM application.

      b. Create assets that don't exist in Qualys – When selected, the connector creates assets that are not already present in Qualys.

          

Connector Configurations – Provide the AD server configurations for the connector to establish a connection.

1. Choose between LDAP, or LDAPs to query Active Directory data. When choosing LDAPs, you must upload a root certificate of the Active Directory to establish a secure connection. Learn more.
2. Provide the IP or Hostname details of the AD server.
3. Provide the BindDN for the LDAP connection from Active Directory.
   The BindDN is comprised of the user and the location of the user in the LDAP directory tree. The BindDN is the credential  to authenticate against an LDAP/LDAPs. When using a BindDN it usually comes with a password associated with it. For example, the user user1 is contained in the Users container, under the example.com domain. The corresponding BindDN will look like the following.
   CN=user1,CN=Users,DC=example,DC=com
4. Provide the password.

    
   The AD connector cannot properly decrypt passwords that contain region-specific or non-ASCII characters (e.g., currency symbols or smart punctuation). Use only standard ASCII characters (A–Z, a–z, 0–9, ! @ # $ % ^ & *) in Active Directory passwords to avoid authentication failures.

5. Lastly, provide the Base Context. A base context is a path within the Active Directory you select to query data from. AD Connector only fetches the asset information of the specified path and pass it to CSAM. For example, CN=Computers,DC=abc,DC=com" "ou=Users,dc=ISL,dc=local

           

6. Click Next.

Create Profiles

On the Connector Profiles page, you can create profiles to filter out fetched data. Specify a filter for which assets in Active Directory should be retrieved. Profiles can be switched to active or inactive depending on the type of data you need.

1. In the Connector Profile screen, click on the + icon to provide the required details:

Connector Name - Name of the profile.

Description – Description of the profile.

Filter– The LDAP Filter limits what part of the directory structure the Qualys Connector syncs computers from. For example,  (&(objectcategory=computer)).

Device Registered Date –  The starting point for fetching asset data. The connector only pulls AD computer assets registered on or after the specified date.

Modules to Enable - Select the Qualys service the connector will have access to. Select CSAM to pass the profile information to the CSAM application.

Status – Select the status (Active/Inactive) of the profile upon creation. You can toggle this later to start or stop fetching the data.

Schedule – Select if the profile should be updated Run Once or on a schedule.

• Run Once - After configuring the profile, the connector fetches asset data from Active Directory and published it to CSAM (within 10 mins).
  
• Scheduled – Provide a date and time for the connector to run automatically, fetch the assets data from Active Directory and publish to CSAM. The connector runs once as per the configured schedule.
• Scheduled with Recurring – Select the ‘Recurring’  checkbox to run the connectors as per the configured frequency. The connector will run multiple times (daily, weekly, or monthly) and stops only on the provided End date/time.

2. Click Next.

3. Review your configurations and click Submit.

View Assets in CSAM

Your connector is created successfully and has Asset Identification rules provided. Now, it should start fetching from Active Directory. To view the Asset information, you must navigate to the CSAM application

You can select any of your connectors, click Actions and click View Assets in CSAM.

This takes you to the CSAM application, where you can view your assets fetched as per the profile and rules.

View Connector Logs

View your past connector runs and their status by navigating to the logs.

You can use search tokens to filter out logs of specific connectors or logs of connectors of desired status.

To learn more about the search tokens, refer to the connector online help.