WN16-00-000340 - Windows Server 2016 must automatically remove or disable emergency accounts after the crisis is resolved or within 72 hours.

Information

Emergency administrator accounts are privileged accounts established in response to crisis situations where the need for rapid account activation is required. Therefore, emergency account activation may bypass normal account authorization processes. If these accounts are automatically disabled, system maintenance during emergencies may not be possible, thus adversely affecting system availability.

Emergency administrator accounts are different from infrequently used accounts (i.e., local logon accounts used by system administrators when network or normal logon/access is not available). Infrequently used accounts are not subject to automatic termination dates. Emergency accounts are accounts created in response to crisis situations, usually for use by maintenance personnel. The automatic expiration or disabling time period may be extended as needed until the crisis is resolved; however, it must not be extended indefinitely. A permanent account should be established for privileged users who need long-term maintenance accounts.

To address access requirements, many operating systems can be integrated with enterprise-level authentication/access mechanisms that meet or exceed access control policy requirements.

NOTE: Nessus has not performed this check. Please review the benchmark to ensure target compliance.

Solution

Remove emergency administrator accounts after a crisis has been resolved or configure the accounts to automatically expire within 72 hours.

Domain accounts can be configured with an account expiration date, under 'Account' properties.

Local accounts can be configured to expire with the command 'Net user [username] /expires:[mm/dd/yyyy]', where username is the name of the temporary user account.

Item Details

Audit Name: DISA Windows Server 2016 STIG v2r3

Plugin: Windows

Control ID: 2e6d09b0a5362a5729d379ebf48d7131c20ac1559e34e31d11656428641c31c8

Detections

Analytics

WN16-00-000340 - Windows Server 2016 must automatically remove or disable emergency accounts after the crisis is resolved or within 72 hours.

Information

Solution

See Also

Item Details