Account Restrictions


  • Policy-based restrictions can be used to mitigate some risks of account compromise through the theft of credentials

Location-Based Policies

  • A user or device can have a logical network location, identified by an IP address, subnet, virtual LAN (VLAN), or organizational unit (OU)
    • can be used as an account restriction mechanism
  • geographical location of a user or device can be calculated using a geolocation mechanism:
    • IP address
      • can be associated with a map location to varying degrees of accuracy based on information published by the registrant
        • including name, country, region, and city
      • registrant is usually the Internet service provider (ISP)
        • information you receive will provide an approximate location of a host based on the ISP
      • large ISP is more difficult to pinpoint the location of the host
      • Software libraries, such as GeoIP, facilitate querying this data
    • Location services
      • methods used by the OS to calculate the device’s geographical position
      • device with a GPS sensor can report a highly accurate location when outdoors
      • where GPS is not supported
        • Location services can triangulate to cell towers, Wi-Fi hotspots, and Bluetooth signals

Time-based Restrictions

  • four main types of time-based policies:
    • time-of-day restrictions policy
      • establishes authorized login hours for an account
    • duration-based login policy
      • establishes the maximum amount of time an account may be logged in for
    • impossible travel time/risky login policy
      • tracks the location of login events over time
      • If these do not meet a threshold, the account will be disabled
      • e.g., user logs in to an account from a device in New York City
        • couple of hours later, a login attempt is made from Los Angeles
        • is refused and an alert is raised because it is not feasible for the user to be in both locations
    • temporary permissions policy
      • removes an account from a security role or group after a defined period