👻 Zombie Accounts: The Haunted Truth About Dormant Logins
Halloween is the season of ghosts, ghouls, and things that go bump in the night. But in the world of cybersecurity, the scariest monsters aren’t hiding under your bed—they’re lurking in your Active Directory.
Meet the Zombie Account: a dormant, forgotten, or unused login that refuses to die. These accounts may look harmless, but in the wrong hands, they can rise from the grave and wreak havoc on your business.
Attackers love zombie accounts because they’re easy to exploit and hard to detect. Why break down the front door when you can stroll in through a forgotten back entrance?
This Halloween, let’s shine a flashlight into the shadows and uncover the skeletons hiding in your IT closet. Here are some practical tips to keep your Active Directory from turning into a haunted house.
🕵️ Audit Regularly with ADAudit Plus (and HR)
Zombie accounts thrive in the dark. The longer they go unnoticed, the more dangerous they become. That’s why regular audits are your first line of defense.
Why it matters: Without visibility, you can’t protect what you don’t know exists. Dormant accounts often belong to former employees or contractors who no longer need access.
How to fight back: Use tools like ADAudit Plus to generate reports on active vs. inactive accounts. Cross‑check with HR to ensure your employee list matches your Active Directory. Remove or disable accounts that no longer belong. Think of it as ghost‑busting for your network—shine the light, and the spirits scatter.
🧛 Check Your Admins: Domain, Enterprise, and Schema
Admin accounts are like the vampire lords of your network—powerful, immortal, and dangerous if left unchecked.
Why it matters: If attackers compromise an admin account, they don’t just get in—they get the keys to the entire castle.
How to fight back: Ensure Domain Admin, Enterprise Admin, and Schema Admin accounts are unique and not tied to someone’s daily driver. Require admins to use separate accounts for everyday tasks and privileged actions. Monitor admin activity closely for unusual behavior. Stake through the heart? In cybersecurity, it’s called least privilege.
🪦 Service Accounts: Make the Unused Ones Disappear
Service accounts are like the skeleton crew of your IT environment—necessary, but often overlooked. Left unchecked, they can become skeletons in the closet.
Why it matters: Many service accounts are over‑privileged, rarely monitored, and sometimes never decommissioned. Attackers know this.
How to fight back: Identify service accounts that haven’t been used recently and make them disappear. Ensure none of them are in admin groups—most don’t need elevated rights. Assign ownership so every account has someone accountable for it. Don’t let your service accounts rattle around like loose bones.
👻 Ghost Accounts: Shared or Generic Logins
Shared accounts are the poltergeists of cybersecurity—no one knows who’s behind them, and they leave a trail of chaos.
Why it matters: If no one “owns” an account, accountability disappears. That’s a gift to attackers.
How to fight back: Eliminate shared or generic logins. Assign unique credentials to every user. Use role‑based access controls to simplify permissions. Ghost accounts may seem convenient, but they’re really just haunting your audit trail.
🕯️ Run a 90‑Day Login Check
If an account hasn’t logged in for 90 days, it’s probably not coming back from the dead—unless an attacker reanimates it.
Why it matters: Dormant accounts are prime targets for credential stuffing and brute force attacks.
How to fight back: Run queries to identify accounts with no logins in the last 90 days. Disable or remove them unless there’s a business case to keep them. Document exceptions so you know why an account still exists. Think of it as a graveyard cleanup—no need to keep feeding the zombies.
🔑 MFA on All Administrator Accounts
If zombie accounts are the undead, MFA is the holy water. It won’t stop every attack, but it makes compromise much harder.
Why it matters: Administrator accounts are the crown jewels. If compromised, attackers can spread laterally, escalate privileges, and cover their tracks.
How to fight back: Enforce multi‑factor authentication (MFA) on all administrator accounts, even the rarely used ones. Tools like AuthLite make MFA adoption easier. Because nothing scares a hacker like a second factor.
💡 Bonus: Don’t Forget the Cloud
Zombie accounts don’t just haunt Active Directory—they lurk in the cloud too.
Why it matters: SaaS platforms, cloud storage, and collaboration tools often have their own user directories. Forgotten accounts here are just as dangerous.
How to fight back: Audit cloud accounts regularly. Remove inactive users and enforce MFA. Monitor for suspicious logins from unusual locations. Cloud zombies may not look like ghosts, but they’re just as deadly.
🧟 Why Zombie Accounts Are Truly Terrifying
Zombie accounts aren’t just a nuisance—they’re a real business risk. They provide attackers with stealthy entry points, undermine compliance with frameworks like NIST, CIS, and HIPAA, and create uncertainty in incident response (“Whose account is this?”). And the worst part? They often go unnoticed until it’s too late. Zombie accounts don’t knock politely. They shuffle in through forgotten doors, dragging your defenses down with them.
🎯 Final Thoughts
This Halloween, don’t just worry about the kids in costumes—worry about the zombies in your Active Directory. By auditing regularly, taming service accounts, enforcing MFA, and cleaning up ghostly logins, you can keep your business safe from the undead.
🦴 Ready to find the skeletons in your closet? Actionable Security's Cybersecurity Risk Assessment will ask the right questions to uncover hidden risks and help you put those ghosts to rest—for good.
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