There are so many user accounts in any environment which are what I call “non-human” accounts – like accounts for services and scheduled tasks. Acounts that applications use to access database servers and accounts used by scripts to logon to other servers.

These non-human accounts tend to create all kinds of risks and management burdens. Non- human accounts:

1. Tend to be highly privileged and therefore a definite target of attackers
2. Frequently have passwords duplicated on other systems– making it easy for bad guys to extend their lateral kill chain
3. Tend to stick around after no longer being needed because we are sure and don’t want to break anything by deleting them
4. Are a burden and risk in terms of passwords
   1. Periodic password changes – again easy to break something if we miss updating the password somewhere it is stored
   2. When admins leave with knowledge of the password

Read more at – Webinar – 10 Ways to Secure and Manage the Risk of Service Accounts and Other Non-Human Accounts