| Once an attacker establishes initial access to a system, the attacker often attempts to create a persistent method of re-establishing 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 application user accounts and notifies SAs and ISSOs. 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, applications must audit account enabling actions and, as required, notify the appropriate individuals so they can investigate the event.
To address access requirements, many application developers choose to integrate their applications with enterprise-level authentication/access/auditing mechanisms that meet or exceed 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. |
