| Users are often the first line of defense within an application. Active users take notice of system and data conditions and are usually the first to notify systems administrators when they notice a system or application related anomaly, particularly if the anomaly is related to their own account.
Inactive user accounts pose a risk to systems and applications. Owners of inactive accounts will not notice if unauthorized access to their user account has been obtained.
Attackers that are able to exploit an inactive user account can potentially obtain and maintain undetected access to an application. Applications need to track periods of user inactivity and disable application accounts after an organization-defined period of inactivity. Such a process greatly reduces the risk that accounts will be misused, hijacked, or will have data compromised.
Management of user identifiers is not applicable to shared information system accounts (e.g., guest and anonymous accounts). It is commonly the case that a user account is the name of an information system account associated with an individual.
To avoid having to build complex user management capabilities directly into their application, wise developers leverage the underlying OS or other user account management infrastructure (AD, LDAP) that is already in place within the organization and meets organizational user account management requirements. |
