Dark Reading is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them.Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

Database Security
Authentication
Mobile
Privacy
Compliance
Careers and People
Identity & Access Management
Security Monitoring
Advanced Threats
Insider Threats
Vulnerability Management
Comments
One-Third of Internal User Accounts Are 'Ghost Users'
Newest First  |  Oldest First  |  Threaded View
BrianN060
BrianN060,
 User Rank: Ninja
4/6/2018 | 12:29:43 PM
The ghost in the machine
Thanks Sara - as we know from so many of the DR Webinar presenters: "It's hard to protect assets if you don't know what you have."  We could add: "or what we forgot we had", to that truism. 

From my perspective, much of it comes down to failures in enterprise modeling, and improper integration of business-rules.  Both should be application domain specific; however, the customizable template approach is a deeply rooted mindset.   

If you think in terms of instances, rather than types, you're more likely to set, regulate and update (via business rules), appropriate access and permissions for Peters, Sara (whatever her status and responsibilities at a given point in time), than for an account under the "Senior Editor" type (with assumed requirements thought to be generic to anyone holding that job title).  It's much harder to compromise and exploit the specific, rather than the generic, or to have an associated vulnerability or attack go unnoticed - a lot harder to hide "the ghost in the machine".
dmddd
dmddd,
 User Rank: Apprentice
4/4/2018 | 9:48:27 PM
Providing references
Hi Sara, Thanks for your interesting article. Would you mind provide the references of the reports you cite (ideally accompanied with a URL)? Best regards, David
dmddd
dmddd,
 User Rank: Apprentice
4/4/2018 | 9:48:26 PM
Providing references
Hi Sara, Thanks for your interesting article. Would you mind provide the references of the reports you cite (ideally accompanied with a URL)? Best regards, David
SecureBlock
SecureBlock,
 User Rank: Apprentice
4/4/2018 | 4:02:48 PM
Couldn't agree more and no one "trick" will fix it
Ask anyone if they have policies regarding file archive and destruction and everyone raises their hands.  Just like if you asked if they have policies for user management, in particular account deprovisioning and most if not all would raise their hands as well. Just like the first example however it is about true execution against the policy and the ability to execute these functions with a high degree of trust and acccuracy.  User Governance and User Management alone will never be enough to completely negate the "ghost account" or orphaned account concern.  This is why having as much intellegence, machine learning, and behavioral analysis built into your access control systems is vital.  If the maintenance checks and balances fail, then you know in real time the operational intellegence protecting the systems will be able to detect and respond to the usage of those ghost accounts.  

Identity Security Automation is the Intersecting of access data, identity data, server data, and information ontained at the time of authentication thus allowing the organziaitons greater ability to detect and respond.  Thanks for putting a light on a problem that has been around for decades and showing how attackers are using this to their advantage.

 


Edge-DRsplash-10-edge-articles
I Smell a RAT! New Cybersecurity Threats for the Crypto Industry
David Trepp, Partner, IT Assurance with accounting and advisory firm BPM LLP,  7/9/2021
News
Attacks on Kaseya Servers Led to Ransomware in Less Than 2 Hours
Robert Lemos, Contributing Writer,  7/7/2021
Commentary
It's in the Game (but It Shouldn't Be)
Tal Memran, Cybersecurity Expert, CYE,  7/9/2021
Register for Dark Reading Newsletters
White Papers
Video
Cartoon
Current Issue
How Machine Learning, AI & Deep Learning Improve Cybersecurity
Machine intelligence is influencing all aspects of cybersecurity. Organizations are implementing AI-based security to analyze event data using ML models that identify attack patterns and increase automation. Before security teams can take advantage of AI and ML tools, they need to know what is possible. This report covers: -How to assess the vendor's AI/ML claims -Defining success criteria for AI/ML implementations -Challenges when implementing AI
Flash Poll
Twitter Feed
Dark Reading - Bug Report
Bug Report
Enterprise Vulnerabilities
From DHS/US-CERT's National Vulnerability Database
CVE-2022-26238
PUBLISHED: 2022-10-06
The default privileges for the running service Normand Service Manager in Beckman Coulter Remisol Advance v2.0.12.1 and prior allows non-privileged users to overwrite and manipulate executables and libraries. This allows attackers to access sensitive data.
CVE-2022-26236
PUBLISHED: 2022-10-06
The default privileges for the running service Normand Remisol Advance Launcher in Beckman Coulter Remisol Advance v2.0.12.1 and prior allows non-privileged users to overwrite and manipulate executables and libraries. This allows attackers to access sensitive data.
CVE-2022-40494
PUBLISHED: 2022-10-06
NPS before v0.26.10 was discovered to contain an authentication bypass vulnerability via constantly generating and sending the Auth key and Timestamp parameters.
CVE-2022-41355
PUBLISHED: 2022-10-06
Online Leave Management System v1.0 was discovered to contain a SQL injection vulnerability via the id parameter at /leave_system/classes/Master.php?f=delete_department.
CVE-2022-39284
PUBLISHED: 2022-10-06
CodeIgniter is a PHP full-stack web framework. In versions prior to 4.2.7 setting `$secure` or `$httponly` value to `true` in `Config\Cookie` is not reflected in `set_cookie()` or `Response::setCookie()`. As a result cookie values are erroneously exposed to scripts. It should be noted that this vuln...