023 – Terminate inactive user sessions

Summary

The system must terminate a session if there is a period of inactivity on the user side of 5 minutes or more.

Description

A system can leave a session indefinitely active if it does not have an automatic termination mechanism based on timeout and the user does not close it manually. Failure to control timeouts may allow an attacker to take advantage of unattended sessions and execute actions on behalf of the authenticated user without their authorization. This risk can notably increase its criticality if this is also the behavior of high-privileged administrator accounts, since it would affect the integrity, confidentiality and availability of the system, its users and the information it contains.

Supported In

Advanced: True

References

• CAPEC-227. Sustained client engagement
• CIS-4_3. Configure automatic session locking on enterprise assets
• CWE-404. Improper resource shutdown or release
• CWE-613. Insufficient session expiration
• HIPAA-164_312_a_2_iii. Automatic logoff (addressable)
• NIST80053-AC-2_2. Removal of temporary or emergency accounts
• NIST80053-AC-12. Session termination
• OWASP10-A7. Identification and authentication failures
• PADSS-3_1_11. Require the user to re-authenticate to re-activate the session (inactive)
• CMMC-AC_L2-3_1_11. Session termination
• CMMC-IA_L2-3_5_6. Identifier handling
• CMMC-SC_L2-3_13_9. Connections termination
• HITRUST-01_t. Session time-out
• FEDRAMP-AC-2_3. Account management - Disable inactive accounts
• FEDRAMP-IA-4. Identifier management
• FEDRAMP-SC-10. Network disconnect
• IEC62443-UC-2_6. Remote session termination
• WASSEC-6_2_2_3. Authorization - Insufficient session expiration
• WASC-W_47. Insufficient session expiration
• ISSAF-T_19_1. Web application assessment - Global Countermeasures (client-side)
• OWASPRISKS-P8. Missing or insufficient session expiration
• OWASPSCP-4. Session management
• NIST800171-1_11. Terminate a user session after a defined condition
• NIST800171-5_6. Disable identifiers after a defined period of inactivity
• SWIFTCSC-2_6. Operator session confidentiality and integrity
• PCI-8_2_5. Access for terminated users is immediately revoked
• SIG-H_3_1_16. Access control
• SIG-I_1_11. Application security
• SIG-M_1_5. End user device security
• SIG-U_1_2_4. Server security
• FISMA-AC-2_2. Removal of temporary or emergency accounts
• FISMA-AC-12. Session termination

Weaknesses

• 068 – Insecure session expiration time

Last updated

2024/01/12