When cyber attackers enter a network, they’re looking for assets that are over-privileged and insecure. All too often, admin and service accounts fit the bill.
Frequently featuring broad permissions, static credentials, and unrestricted logon rights, admin and service accounts are some of the most powerful assets in your network – and some of the toughest to secure. Nearly one third of all cyber incidents in 2024 were identity-based attacks that used valid accounts, but governing access rights is notoriously complex, meaning these accounts often leave security gaps more than wide enough for attackers to slip through.
We’ll break down what makes privileged accounts so vulnerable, how attackers exploit their weaknesses, and how you can secure them without adding operational complexity or manual work.
What Are Privileged Accounts?
A privileged account is any identity – human or machine – with elevated access to systems, data, or administrative functions. These accounts hold the keys to the kingdom, enabling users or applications to configure settings, manage identities, and access sensitive environments. Privileged accounts span myriad categories, but some of the most common are admin and service accounts.
Admin Accounts
These accounts grant users elevated privileges over operating systems, applications, or infrastructure, often with local or domain-level admin rights. Admin accounts are routinely used for maintenance, patching, or IT support, but their broad permissions mean admin accounts are always one step away from handing attackers an all-access pass to the network.
Service Accounts
Service accounts are non-human identities used for machine-to-machine connections, allowing applications and services to interact with other systems. They’re essential for automating business processes but often overlooked during security audits – many have static credentials, extensive permissions, and run 24/7, making them a stealthy attack vehicle.
Domain Controllers
Domain controllers (DCs) manage authentication and authorization within Active Directory (AD) environments. They’re a core component of identity infrastructure and are often administered via privileged accounts.
Privileged User Accounts
This broader category includes IT personnel, developers, system architects, and even contractors with elevated access to production environments, databases, or cloud workloads. While not necessarily domain admins, these users often have far-reaching access across systems and services.
Privileged Account Risks: Challenges Securing Admin and Service Accounts
At least 80% of data breaches involve privileged accounts – but why? They often bypass standard security controls, using their elevated permissions to move freely across the network. In other words, privileged accounts are a lateral movement goldmine – and they’re typically tough to effectively secure.
Admin and service accounts leave organizations vulnerable due to challenges like:
- Excessive Privileges and Ongoing Logon Rights: Many service accounts are over-provisioned with domain admin or enterprise-wide access that’s not operationally necessary. Similarly, admin accounts with outstanding logon rights are a prime target for attackers with stolen credentials. Once in place, these excessive permissions are rarely revisited or revoked.
- Monitoring and Auditing Barriers: Because service accounts are non-human and typically run in the background, they’re notoriously hard to monitor. Admin and service account activity often blends in with legitimate network behavior, making it difficult to detect potential threats.
- Infrequent Password Rotation: Even in the best cases, service account credentials are typically only updated quarterly, with annual updates more standard. Some organizations opt to set service account credentials with no expiration date due to operational headaches.
How Attackers Exploit Privileged Accounts
After gaining an initial foothold in the network, attackers immediately seek out privileged accounts. They know that with the right credentials, they can escalate privileges and move laterally without encountering obstacles.
Common attack techniques used by compromised privileged accounts span:
- Living off the land: Using native tools like PowerShell and WMI to move stealthily through the network
- Credential dumping: Extracting stored hashes or plain-text passwords
- Pass-the-hash or pass-the-ticket: Reusing stolen credentials
- Service account hijacking: Abusing misconfigured or unmonitored service accounts to access additional systems
Once a privileged account is compromised, attackers can disable security controls, exfiltrate data, deploy ransomware, or compromise domain controllers – all while appearing legitimate.
Securing Admin and Service Accounts: Best Practices
Locking down privileged accounts requires more than password hygiene and auditing. It demands proactive, real-time controls that limit both who can log in and what accounts can do.
Apply Network Layer MFA
Traditional MFA protects login portals at the application layer, leaving many assets inside the network unprotected. Network layer MFA enforces just-in-time identity verification any time privileged accounts attempt to access sensitive systems. This way, privileged ports remain closed unless access is verified in real time, which eliminates excessive admin rights.
Enforce Least Privilege Access with Identity Segmentation
By limiting access based on an account’s approved actions or required assets and logon types, identity segmentation automatically enforces least privilege access, restricting admin and service accounts to only what’s necessary for legitimate business operations. As a result, password rotation and excessive permission become largely obsolete, while also eliminating many attack vectors such as Pass the Ticket, Golden Ticket, Kerberoasting, and other attacks to lock down lateral movement.
Automate Service Account Discovery
Service accounts often create blind spots that drive unnecessary risks; solutions that monitor all network behavior can automatically discover and categorize service accounts, enabling full visibility into service account activity without added manual work.
Safeguard Privileged Protocols
Protocols like RDP, SMB, and SSH used to access systems remotely are frequently exploited as vectors for lateral movement. Organizations should close these ports by default, opening them only after verifying access with real-time MFA.
Stop Privileged Account Abuse with Zero Networks
Zero Networks makes it easy to stop privileged account abuse without manual configurations or operational disruptions. Our set-and-forget solution:
- Automatically segments admin and service accounts to limit access based on role and behavior
- Applies network-layer MFA to privileged protocols and systems, taking the power away from stolen credentials
- Discovers service accounts and restricts them to necessary access only
- Dynamically enforces identity-based controls that evolve with your environment
With Zero Networks, even if a privileged account is compromised, attackers hit a wall. See how Zero eliminates admin and service account risks in a click – take a self-guided product tour.
Not quite ready to try Zero? Learn more about how we help you gain control of privileged accounts with our identity segmentation executive summary.
