The firewall implementation must support organizational requirements to disable the user identifiers after an organizationally defined time period of inactivity.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-37328	SRG-NET-000287-FW-000158	SV-49089r1_rule		Medium

Description
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 account can potentially obtain and maintain undetected access to the operating system. Operating systems need to track periods of user inactivity and disable accounts after an organizationally defined period of inactivity. Such a process greatly reduces the risk that accounts will be misused or hijacked. Limiting inactivity timeouts lowers the risk of an attacker hijacking an unattended session.

Description

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 account can potentially obtain and maintain undetected access to the operating system. Operating systems need to track periods of user inactivity and disable accounts after an organizationally defined period of inactivity. Such a process greatly reduces the risk that accounts will be misused or hijacked. Limiting inactivity timeouts lowers the risk of an attacker hijacking an unattended session.

STIG	Date
Firewall Security Requirements Guide	2013-04-24

Details

Check Text ( C-45576r1_chk )
Review all accounts and verify any accounts that have been inactive or expired for longer than the organizationally defined time period are authorized to remain. If inactive or expired accounts are present and not authorized to remain, this is a finding.

Fix Text (F-42253r1_fix)
Configure the firewall implementation to disable the user identifiers after an organizationally defined time period of inactivity.