What are Orphaned Accounts?
Orphaned accounts refer to user accounts that remain active even after the employee or user has departed from an organization. The danger of orphaned accounts lies in their potential to be exploited due to inadequate oversight, posing significant security risks. These accounts are typically linked to individuals who once had legitimate access rights but no longer require them due to role changes, terminations, or shifting responsibilities.
Why Orphaned Accounts Exist?
Despite strict security policies, orphaned accounts are an all-too-common occurrence for many organizations. They exist mainly due to poor management of access rights administration, where leavers' accounts are not promptly deactivated or deleted. Rapid staff turnover, reorganization, and a lack of audits and checks also contribute to the prevalence of orphaned accounts. In large organizations, it's easy for IT departments to overlook such accounts among numerous users and systems.
Who Needs to Manage Orphaned Accounts?
Organizations across all sectors need to manage orphaned accounts effectively. Primarily, the responsibility falls to IT administrators, IT security teams, and management involved in access control and rights administration. With the rise in cloud-based services and SaaS applications, it's pivotal to tighten control over orphaned accounts to prevent unauthorized access and data breaches.
Usage and Prevalence of Orphaned Accounts
Orphaned accounts are a significant concern in permission management and Identity and Access Management (IAM) because unauthorized users can potentially access sensitive data. These accounts are used as entry points for corporate espionage, data theft, or other forms of cyberattacks. Therefore, organizations should adopt a least privilege access approach and provide only the necessary access rights required for a user to perform their responsibilities.
In the context of the cloud infrastructure and DevOps, managing orphaned accounts is more critical than ever. Shared resources and highly integrated systems significantly increase the impact of compromised accounts. However, despite the risks associated with orphaned accounts, their existence is common in many organizations due to the challenges in managing and keeping track of active and inactive user accounts across various systems and platforms. Effective cybersecurity strategies should thus include regular audits of user privileges and immediate deactivation of accounts once a user no longer requires access.
