| Temporary application accounts could ostensibly be used in the event of a vendor support visit where a support representative requires a temporary unique account in order to perform diagnostic testing or conduct some other support related activity. When these types of accounts are created, there is a risk that the temporary account may remain in place and active after the support representative has left.
To address this, in the event temporary application accounts are required, the application must ensure accounts designated as temporary in nature shall automatically terminate these accounts after an organization defined time period. Such a process and capability greatly reduces the risk that accounts will be misused, hijacked, or data compromised.
To address the multitude of policy based access requirements, many application developers choose to integrate their applications with enterprise level authentication/access mechanisms meeting or exceeding access control policy requirements. Such integration allows the application developer to off-load those access control functions and focus on core application features and functionality.
Examples of enterprise level authentication/access mechanisms include, but are not limited to, Active Directory and LDAP.
Temporary database accounts must be identified in order for the system to recognize and terminate them after a given time period. The DBMS and any administrators must have a means to recognize any temporary accounts for special handling.
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