Stale Accounts in Active Directory

What are Stale Accounts in Active Directory?

Accounts that have not been used in the past six months and are no longer necessary. Stale accounts are often inactive user accounts. They are an account from a user who no longer works there that was never deactivated or they are an account that was created and forgotten about for some other reason.

According to Microsoft, over 10% of user accounts in Active Directory have been detected as inactive otherwise known as “stale”, based on the last time the password was changed or the user’s last logon timestamp.

Stale accounts in Active Directory pose a security risk to organizations because they can offer attackers, or even former employees, a straightforward route into an organization’s environment. Even if the inactive user account lacks privileges, it remains susceptible to exploitation in privilege escalation attacks.

Organizations must introduce the proper technical processes and department communication to remediate the risk of inactive accounts in Active Directory.

What can you do in Active Directory to eliminate the risk of stale accounts?

• Deactivate user accounts that have either never been logged into or have remained inactive for a specified duration.
• Strip group memberships from disabled accounts and transfer them to designated containers within Active Directory, such as a “disabled” Organizational Unit (OU), to enhance visibility and restrict access to resources.
• Remove obsolete accounts from the system.

How Organizations Can Manage and Protect Against These Risks

Enzoic for Active Directory offers several ways to protect against stale accounts.

• Logging and Reporting: Enzoic for Active Directory allows administrators to run real-time reports on stale accounts, allowing you to quickly take action, such as disabling or deleting these accounts.
• Monitoring and Alerts: Enzoic constantly checks passwords against an extensive database of known compromised credentials. If it finds that a stale account’s password has been breached, Enzoic will alert you right away. This helps you spot potential issues before they become serious problems.
• Password Policy Enforcement: If someone tries to use a stale account, Enzoic can enforce strong password policies. This means that even if the account is used again, the new password will need to be secure and not previously compromised, reducing the risk of unauthorized access.
• Regular Account Activity Reports: Administrators can run regular reports on account activity, highlighting any stale accounts or other issues you need to address. This keeps you informed and helps you act quickly if there’s a potential security threat.

Why This Matters

Stale accounts can easily slip through the cracks, but they can pose significant security risks. By using Enzoic, you can ensure that even these less obvious vulnerabilities are monitored and managed effectively. This proactive approach of regular monitoring, strong policy enforcement, and the ability to integrate with existing security frameworks helps protect your organization from potential breaches and keeps your network secure.

Click here to learn more about stale accounts and other critical risk factors for passwords in Active Directory.