Your Guide on Cloud Migrations and Cybersecurity

Unmanaged Active Directory accounts are stale user accounts, orphaned service accounts or unused privileged accounts, that are low-effort entry points for attackers. If left unchecked, they increase risk of data theft, compliance failure, and costly downtime. 

This guide outlines how to discover, remediate, and prevent unmanaged accounts through inventory, policies, automation and ongoing governance.

 Why unmanaged AD accounts pose a threat to your organization: 

• Orphaned access - former employees, contractors, or apps still have active credentials.
  
  
• Stale / inactive accounts - unused accounts are easier to compromise and often lack MFA.
  
  
• Unmanaged service accounts - long-lived and often unchanged passwords since their creation, interactive logins and high privileges.
  
  
• Uncontrolled privileged accounts - too many admins, shared credentials, no PAM.
  
  
• Weak lifecycle processes - onboarding/offboarding gaps, inconsistent role cleanup.
  
  
• Poor monitoring - no alerting on admin creation, group changes, or atypical logins.
  
  

Overall business impact = data exfiltration, ransomware footholds, regulatory fines, loss of customer trust, long recovery times.

9-Step Guide to Managing Your Active Directory

Step 1: Discover & inventory

Goal: get a complete, searchable list of every account in your Active Directory (users, service, privileged, disabled).

Actions:

• Export AD users, groups, last logon, password last set, account enabled/disabled, service principal names (SPNs).
• Catalog service accounts and privileged groups (Domain Admins, Enterprise Admins, Schema Admins, etc.).
• Identify accounts with non-expiring passwords. 
  
  

Step 2: Classify & prioritize 

Goal: tag accounts by type & risk so remediation is prioritized.

Categories:

• Active user (employee / contractor)
• Stale user (no logon > X days)
• Privileged/admin account
• Service account (Group-managed service account (gMSA), regular service account)
• Shared account
• Disabled/orphaned account

Recommended thresholds (customize to your organization):

• Stale/inactive user: no logon for 90 days → review, disable if confirmed inactive
• Remove / delete: disabled for 365 days → prepare for deletion (legal/HR check)
• Privileged accounts: immediate review; ensure accounts are managed by a Privileged Account Management PAM) tool & MFA mandatory
• Service accounts: convert to managed service accounts or rotate password automatically
  
  

Step 3: Quick wins

Goal: reduce exposure quickly while planning permanent fixes.

Quick actions:

• Disable obvious orphaned accounts (hold for 30 days before deletion).
• Require MFA for all admin/privileged accounts immediately.
• Identify and block interactive logins for service accounts.
• Enforce password must-change for all credentials.
• Enable logging for directory changes if not already enforced.
  
  

Step 4: Remediate service accounts & passwords 

Goal: bring service accounts under control with automation & modern managed identities.

Recommendations:

• Replace legacy service accounts with Group Managed Service Accounts (gMSA) or managed identities where possible.
• Prohibit interactive logons for service accounts via Group Policy Objects (GPO) or conditional access.
• Rotate service account credentials automatically (use session-based passwords/vaults/PAM).
• Document service account owners and usage.
  
  

Step 5:  Privileged Access Management 

Goal: reduce standing admin privileges and use just-in-time (JIT) controls.

Actions:

• Implement a PAM / Privileged Access Workstation (PAW) model.
• Require JIT elevation for admin tasks and session recording.
• Move privileged accounts into a PAM solution; ban shared passwords.
• Enforce strong authentication (MFA + hardware MFA for tier-1 admins).
  
  

Step 6: Harden authentication & access policies

Goal: reduce credential risks and implement least privilege.

Controls:

• Enforce MFA for all interactive logins, especially admins and remote access.
• Implement least privilege through role-based access controls (RBAC).
• Configure Conditional Access (location, device compliance, risk signals).
• Enforce strong password/passphrase policy, or move to passkeys where possible.
  
  

Step 7: Implement lifecycle and governance (Ongoing)

Goal: make secure account management repeatable and auditable.

Processes:

• Onboarding: issue role-mapped accounts, assign least privilege, MFA enrollment.
• Offboarding: immediate account disablement, credential revocation, device wipe.
• Access reviews / attestation: quarterly reviews of privileged roles and critical app access.
• Provisioning automation: use IGA (Identity Governance & Administration) for approvals and lifecycles.
• Naming & ownership: every account must have an owner and documented purpose.
  
  

Step 8: Monitoring, alerting & detection (Ongoing)

Goal: detect abnormal account behavior early.

Key items:

• Enable AD auditing (object changes, group membership changes, account creations).
• Send AD logs and authentication events to SIEM/MSSP for correlation.
• Alert on: new privileged account creation; changes to Domain Admins; many failed logon attempts; atypical admin logins (time/location).
• Use UEBA (user and entity behavior analytics) to detect lateral movement patterns.
  
  

Step 9: Backup, testing & recovery (Ongoing)

Goal: ensure you can recover AD and validate integrity.

Actions:

• Maintain regular, tested backups of AD (System State, authoritative restores).
• Periodically perform AD restore drills in a test environment.
• Protect backups offline/air-gapped and ensure backup account credentials are distinct and secured.
  
  

Policy templates & thresholds (examples)

• Inactive accounts: disable after 90 days inactivity; delete after 365 days of disabled state (after HR/legal confirmation).
• Password policy: align with your security team (e.g. minimum 16 characters OR passphrases + complexity), no reuse, rotation for non-managed accounts every 120 days.
• Privileged access: MFA + PAM required; no standing domain-admin accounts for daily work; use JIT for elevation.
• Service accounts: must be gMSA or managed; no interactive logins; automated rotation of credentials.
  
  

(Adjust thresholds to regulatory/industry needs - healthcare, finance often require stricter controls.)

Quick checklist

• Inventory all AD accounts and export key attributes
• Identify owners for every critical account
• Enforce MFA for admin/privileged accounts
• Disable accounts inactive >90 days (apply review process)
• Convert service accounts to managed accounts (gMSA)
• Move privileged accounts into PAM and stop shared credentials
• Enable AD auditing and ideally, send logs to SIEM
  

How Pro Cloud SaaS Can Help You Stay in Control of AD Accounts

Our team of experts take the headache out of Active Directory account management, so your business can operate efficiently & securely. Our approach covers every stage of the lifecycle:

Initial Audit & Policy Setup

• Comprehensive audit of all AD accounts, cross-checking them against your current list of active employees and contractors.
• Establish clear, enforceable policies, along with an automated workflow to ensure those policies are consistently applied.

Ongoing Administration

• Full management of your entire AD environment and licences. This ensures accounts are kept clean, up to date, and in line with your security standards.

Regular Audits

• Regular audits every 3-6 months,  with frequency tailored to your environment’s complexity and rate of change. This is especially critical for organizations with high staff turnover or frequent permissions changes.

With Pro Cloud SaaS as your AD partner, you gain a secure, well-governed environment without the daily management burden. Freeing your IT team to focus on strategic priorities while knowing your accounts are always under control.