| 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 modify an existing account for later use.
Notification of account creation is one method and best practice for mitigating this risk. A comprehensive account management process will ensure an audit trail which documents the creation of application user accounts and notifies administrators and/or application owners that they exist. Such a process greatly reduces the risk that accounts will be surreptitiously created and provides logging that can be used for forensic purposes.
Note that user authentication and account management must be done via an enterprise-wide mechanism whenever possible. Examples of enterprise-level authentication/access mechanisms include, but are not limited to, Active Directory and LDAP. This requirement applies to cases where accounts are directly managed by Oracle.
Notwithstanding how accounts are normally managed, the DBMS must support the requirement to notify appropriate individuals upon account modification within Oracle. Indeed, in a configuration where accounts are managed externally, the manipulation of an account within Oracle may indicate hostile activity. |
