NHI 101: Securing Service Accounts

Securing Service Accounts is Not New. Here’s Why It Should Be Your Organization's Top Priority Today.

Following another year rife with security incidents, service accounts—non-human identities used by applications and services—are still the talk of the town. These accounts hold the keys to your organization's most sensitive data and critical systems. Neglecting service account security can open doors to cyber threats, making it imperative to act fast. Yet gaining full visibility and control of service accounts remains a challenge for most organizations.

The Importance & Difficulty of Securing Service Accounts

Service accounts are essential for automating tasks, integrating systems, and running critical applications. However, their elevated privileges make them valuable targets for attackers. According to recent studies, over 80% of security breaches this year involve compromised service accounts. When these accounts are exploited, they can provide unauthorized access to sensitive data, disrupt business, and even lead to full-scale system compromises that halt operations for weeks. Securing these accounts is crucial for safeguarding your organization's assets and maintaining operational integrity.

However, managing service accounts poses unique challenges:

1. Visibility Issues: Organizations often lack a comprehensive inventory of service accounts, making monitoring and management difficult. Service accounts are often used outside their intended scope, making it challenging to gain visibility into all their uses.

2. Overprivileged Access: Service accounts frequently have more permissions than necessary, increasing the risk of lateral movement if compromised.

3. Credential Management: Hard-coded passwords, shared credentials, and infrequent rotations create vulnerabilities.

4. Audit Difficulties: The inability to track the activities of non-human identities hinders incident detection and response.

5. Lifecycle Management: Service accounts may remain active even after services are decommissioned, leaving orphaned accounts open to exploitation.

Steps to Enhance Security

As businesses increasingly adopt cloud computing, IoT devices, and AI technologies, the number of service accounts is set to grow exponentially. This expansion amplifies the potential attack surface. Proactively securing service accounts prepares organizations for future challenges, making their security posture more resilient against evolving threats.

Despite the challenges associated with managing service accounts, organizations can take proactive measures to fortify your service account security:

• Inventory and Assess: Create a detailed list of all service accounts and evaluate their necessity and access levels. Ensure that your systems are surfacing all service accounts for you — a manually curated list is often insufficient as it does not typically account for all service accounts.

• Implement the Principle of Least Privilege: Assign only the minimum required permissions to each service account. Regularly assess which permissions are being used, and rightsize any excessive permissions often.

• Automate Credential Management: Use management solutions to automate password rotations and eliminate hard-coded credentials.

• Monitor and Audit Activities: Employ advanced monitoring tools to continuously track service account activities and detect anomalies in real time.

• Regular Reviews and Cleanup: Periodically assess accounts for relevance, disabling or removing those no longer needed.

• Employee Training and Awareness: Educate your IT staff about best practices in managing service accounts to avoid sharing service accounts or using them outside their intended purpose.

The Pressure is Mounting

With cyber threats becoming more sophisticated, delaying enhancements to service account security is risky and can be costly. Regulatory pressures from frameworks like GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI DSS demand stringent identity and access management practices. Non-compliance can result in hefty fines and legal consequences. Additionally, the financial and reputational costs of data breaches are escalating dramatically. And, on top of the mounting consequences, service accounts are more prevalent than ever due to increased automation and the growing interconnectedness of most technology landscapes. 

Organizations can strengthen their defenses, ensure compliance, and maintain customer trust by prioritizing service account security.

Conclusion

Service accounts are integral to the seamless operation of modern IT environments but can become significant vulnerabilities if not properly secured. By proactively addressing challenges and implementing robust measures, organizations can protect their critical assets, ensure regulatory compliance, and sustain trust in an increasingly digital world.