Application accounts offer the unique, but not impossible, challenge of discovery, monitoring, and protection
One of the most notoriously challenging cybersecurity areas is service account protection and the safety of application accounts. These accounts, which are used to run applications and automated processes, often operate under the radar of traditional network infrastructure security measures, creating what is known as the ‘Application Account Blind Spot.’
Only 22% of organizations consider it ‘extremely important’ to know which service accounts exist in their environments [Osterman].
This insufficient focus on managing service and application accounts is troubling, especially since an organization can have hundreds to thousands of these accounts, making tracking each one difficult. Moreover, the same report claims that only about 20% of organizations are fully confident in their awareness of which applications and privileged accounts are active. This lack of knowledge is crucial, as it hinders security team efforts in preventing lateral movement by attackers and blocking unauthorized access—greatly hampering cyber-resilience.
Let’s examine the complexities of protecting application accounts, consider existing approaches and their limitations, and explore how to effectively discover, monitor, and protect every application account within an environment, drawing inspiration from modern, advanced cybersecurity technologies and solutions.
The Challenge of Protecting Application Accounts
Service (or application) accounts are notoriously difficult to secure for several reasons:
- Elevated Privileges: Often, these accounts have elevated privileges, granting them extensive access across networks and systems.
- Lack of Visibility: These accounts operate in the background, making them less visible to security teams.
- Static Credentials: Service accounts frequently use long-term, static credentials, increasing the risk if these credentials are compromised.
- Complex Management: The sheer number and diversity of application accounts, especially in large organizations, make them challenging to manage and monitor effectively.
- Regulatory Requirements: Regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union mandate strict data protection measures, which include securing service/application accounts to prevent unauthorized data access. In the United States, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requires the safeguarding of patient data, implicating the need for stringent security of application accounts in healthcare settings. Similarly, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) necessitates protecting cardholder data, where securing service accounts becomes essential to mitigate data breaches and in preventing lateral movement. Additionally, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) in the U.S. and other similar financial regulations globally enforce the securing of service accounts to ensure the integrity of financial information and systems.
Current Approaches and Their Limitations
Several methods have been developed to mitigate the risks associated with application accounts, but they come with limitations:
- Regular Credential Rotation: While changing credentials periodically can help, it’s labor-intensive and doesn’t address real-time threats.
- Standard Network Security Tools: Conventional tools often fail to provide the granularity needed to monitor service account activities effectively.
- Manual Audits: These are time-consuming for any cybersecurity team and can’t keep pace with the continuous changes in a dynamic IT environment.
Automating Discovery, Monitoring, and Protection
The key to effectively managing service accounts lies in automation.
Here’s how advanced cybersecurity solutions approach this challenge:
- Automatic Discovery: Using machine learning cybersecurity practices, these platforms can automatically identify and catalog all privileged accounts across an environment. This step is crucial for establishing a baseline of normal activity.
- Continuous Monitoring: Real-time monitoring of service account activities allows for the immediate detection of unusual behavior patterns or policy violations.
- Behavioral Analytics: By analyzing the behavior of application/service accounts, these systems can identify deviations from normal activity, often a sign of compromise or misuse.
- Dynamic Policy Enforcement: Implementing and enforcing security policies dynamically, based on real-time data, ensures that thse accounts operate within their designated and approved parameters.
- Integration with Existing Infrastructure: Seamlessly integrating with existing security infrastructures, even with existing EDR agents, enhances the overall effectiveness of application account monitoring and protection.
Features of Advanced Platforms
There are many features of advanced platforms that are beneficial for protecting service/application accounts:
- Granular Visibility: These platforms offer deep cybersecurity visibility into each application account’s interactions, including network traffic, file access, and system changes.
- Automated Response Mechanisms: In case of a detected threat, the system can automatically take predefined actions, such as temporarily disabling an account or alerting administrators.
- Compliance Reporting: They help in maintaining compliance with various regulatory standards by providing detailed logs and reports on service account activities.
- Scalability: As organizations grow, these platforms can scale accordingly, continuously providing comprehensive service account protection.
Mitigating the Risk of Application Accounts
To mitigate the risks associated with service accounts, organizations should:
- Implement the Least Privilege Principle: Ensure that application accounts have only the necessary permissions to perform their designated tasks.
- Regularly Update and Review Policies: Continuously assess and update security policies related to any privileged accounts.
- Educate Teams: Raise awareness among IT and security teams about the importance of service/application account security.
Illuminating the application account blind spot is critical for modern organizations. With the right tools and strategies, security teams can effectively discover, monitor, and protect their privileged accounts against a range of cyber threats.
Advanced cybersecurity platforms, offering lateral movement cyber security protection, afford a comprehensive and dynamic approach to securing these vital IT infrastructure components. As technology and attack tactics continue to advance, so must our approaches to protecting the digital assets under our care.
