Cyber Millennial

Strategic cybersecurity insight from the edge of practice

  • Why New Zealand?
  • Cybersecurity Insights
  • Professor Intro

The Service Account Problem We Never (Completely) Fixed

Cyber MIllennial
August 11, 2025 by Robert Kehl in Identity and Access Manag, Security Architecture

The risks tied to over-privileged service accounts are not new, but they remain one of the most consistently overlooked weaknesses in enterprise environments. Kerberoasting is still an effective path to compromise because SPNs are tied to accounts with excessive rights, RC4 is still in use, and stale accounts can still slip by. Hardcoded credentials, interactive logon exceptions, and “temporary” privileges that become permanent keep service accounts in an attacker’s playbook. Group Managed Service Accounts (gMSAs) are rarely implemented despite being a native, low-cost control, and while managing service accounts in a privileged identity and access management platform like CyberArk or Delinea would add even more protection, it is operationally harder to achieve. Security or governance teams may support the idea, but Active Directory operations often sit with IT, which makes control and enforcement uneven. This article looks at why this problem has never been completely fixed and what defenders can do without a major budget or redesign.

Read More
August 11, 2025 /Robert Kehl
service account security, kerberoasting, privileged access management, Active Directory, identity security
Identity and Access Manag, Security Architecture