| Once an attacker establishes initial access to a system, they often attempt to create a persistent method of re-establishing access. One way to accomplish this is for the attacker to simply modify an existing account.
Auditing of account modification is one method and best practice for mitigating this risk. A comprehensive application account management process ensures an audit trail automatically documents the modification of application user accounts and, as required, notifies administrators, application owners, and/or appropriate individuals. Applications must provide this capability directly, leveraging complimentary technology providing this capability or a combination thereof.
Automated account auditing processes greatly reduces the risk that accounts will be surreptitiously modified and provides logging that can be used for forensic purposes.
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.
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