V-255508

Discussion

Emergency accounts are administrator accounts which are 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 emergency accounts remain active when no longer needed, they may be used to gain unauthorized access. The risk is greater for the network device since these accounts have elevated privileges. To mitigate this risk, automated termination of these accounts must be set upon account creation. It is important to note the difference between emergency accounts and the emergency administration account. The emergency administration account, also known as the account of last resort, is an infrequently used account used by network administrators only when network or normal logon/access is not available. The emergency administration account is not subject to automatic termination dates.

Check Content

Verify expiry of account with command: 

chage -l "USERNAME"

and look at the "Account expires" line for expiry date.

If the expiry date is more than "72" hours after emergency account creation, this is a finding.