February 11, 2018 at 11:47 pm
Hi,
I would like to hear your opinion on password policy for system accounts. (not the service accounts)
For our staff members who have access to SQL, we have the standard policy in place with regards to complexity and in our case,
they have to change their passwords every 90 days. (Until we move onto a domain, where I will rather use domain accounts).
But what about the SQL logins for our front-end systems that connect to SQL? (our websites, applications, etc). Yes we have the complexity of the password in place,
but what about expiration? Should these passwords also expire and be changed, and more importantly, how often?
I don't believe it should also be 90 days like our staff logins....
February 12, 2018 at 1:38 am
If the account is being used by a application, website, etc, then they are service accounts, not System Accounts. Generally, service account passwords aren't set to expire; otherwise, when they do things can fall over unless you have a very robust system in that can automatically change all the references to that password in the right places, at the right time. With Service Accounts, you need to endeavour that the account only has access to do what it's allowed to/should do, and just that. On a website, this might mean that the account only has access to run Stored Procedures; anything else after that are inherited.
For your System Administrators, then yes, expiry is a good practice. A lot of places as well have it so that System Administrators have 2 accounts. 1 for day to day, and a second which has sysadmin privs. This means that they can't "accidentally" do something they normally could as an SA but also, should their normal account be compromised, the other is not.
Thom~
Excuse my typos and sometimes awful grammar. My fingers work faster than my brain does.
Larnu.uk
February 12, 2018 at 8:50 am
Interesting. My confusion is, what the system logins are. Generally, I consider them some built-in logins such as sa, NT SERVICE\xxx, etc.
In the company I'm working for, Service Account means the account which is used by MSSQL Services, and Application Accounts are for applications( such as Website and other applications ).
GASQL.com - Focus on Database and Cloud
February 12, 2018 at 10:01 am
My guess is the reference is to machine accounts. Created on the "system". i.e. MYSERVER\MYUSER
February 12, 2018 at 12:40 pm
Alexander Zhang - Monday, February 12, 2018 8:50 AMInteresting. My confusion is, what the system logins are. Generally, I consider them some built-in logins such as sa, NT SERVICE\xxx, etc.
In the company I'm working for, Service Account means the account which is used by MSSQL Services, and Application Accounts are for applications( such as Website and other applications ).
The user was asking about system accounts (not logins) and then asked about SQL logins. Two very different things that Thom explained well.
NT SERVICE\xxx - those are generally virtual accounts, not built in logins. Virtual accounts explained in this documentation:
Configure Windows Service Accounts and Permissions
Sue
February 14, 2018 at 1:26 pm
Sue_H - Monday, February 12, 2018 12:40 PMAlexander Zhang - Monday, February 12, 2018 8:50 AMInteresting. My confusion is, what the system logins are. Generally, I consider them some built-in logins such as sa, NT SERVICE\xxx, etc.
In the company I'm working for, Service Account means the account which is used by MSSQL Services, and Application Accounts are for applications( such as Website and other applications ).The user was asking about system accounts (not logins) and then asked about SQL logins. Two very different things that Thom explained well.
NT SERVICE\xxx - those are generally virtual accounts, not built in logins. Virtual accounts explained in this documentation:
Configure Windows Service Accounts and PermissionsSue
Thanks for your explanation and correction. Glad to learn something:-)
GASQL.com - Focus on Database and Cloud
February 14, 2018 at 2:00 pm
Alexander Zhang - Wednesday, February 14, 2018 1:26 PMSue_H - Monday, February 12, 2018 12:40 PMAlexander Zhang - Monday, February 12, 2018 8:50 AMInteresting. My confusion is, what the system logins are. Generally, I consider them some built-in logins such as sa, NT SERVICE\xxx, etc.
In the company I'm working for, Service Account means the account which is used by MSSQL Services, and Application Accounts are for applications( such as Website and other applications ).The user was asking about system accounts (not logins) and then asked about SQL logins. Two very different things that Thom explained well.
NT SERVICE\xxx - those are generally virtual accounts, not built in logins. Virtual accounts explained in this documentation:
Configure Windows Service Accounts and PermissionsSue
Thanks for your explanation and correction. Glad to learn something:-)
It doesn't help that they keep modifying things with the accounts and how MS implements it on just about every release. 🙂
It's all good though, gets more secure on every change. It's just hard to remember which version uses what.
Sue
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