| Once an attacker establishes initial access to a system, the attacker often attempts to create a persistent method of reestablishing access. One way to accomplish this is for the attacker to simply enable a new or disabled account. Notification of account enabling is one method for mitigating this risk. A comprehensive account management process will ensure an audit trail, which documents the creation of operating system user accounts and notifies System Administrators and Information System Security Officers (ISSO) that it exists. Such a process greatly reduces the risk that accounts will be surreptitiously enabled and provides logging that can be used for forensic purposes.
In order to detect and respond to events that affect user accessibility and application processing, operating systems must audit account enabling actions and, as required, notify the appropriate individuals so they can investigate the event.
To address access requirements, many operating systems can be integrated with enterprise-level authentication/access/auditing mechanisms that meet or exceed access control policy requirements. |
