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How does the Drata agent work?
How does the Drata agent work?

Once installed, how does the Drata agent work on your computer?

Ashley Hyman avatar
Written by Ashley Hyman
Updated over a week ago

The Drata agent is a lightweight, read-only application that lives in your computer's toolbar. It's built with ElectronJS following their best practices for architecture and security. The application uses OSQuery (open source project by Facebook) to read your system information to help ensure proper security configurations are set - such as hard drive encryption, screensaver locking, antivirus software, password manager, and automatic updates are enabled. These security configurations are recommended for SOC 2.

Note, to locate antivirus and password manager details, the agent does pull a list of apps and Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer browser extensions from the employee's device. The agent also recognizes the operating system and serial number of the machine for asset management purposes.

The application runs every day on your employees' computers. The agent does not modify any files or folders on your employees' machines.

The most recent pen test on the agent was conducted in August 2023. Results are available to share upon signature of an NDA.

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