Title

Procedures must be in place to notify users when an application is decommissioned. (Cat III impact)

Discussion

When maintenance no longer exists for an application, there are no individuals responsible for making security updates. The application support staff should maintain procedures for decommissioning. The decommissioning process should include notifying users of the pending decommissioning event. If the users are not informed of the decommissioning event, attackers may be able to stand up similar looking system and fool users into attempting to log onto a duplicate system. This can be as simple as a banner informing users. This risk is primarily geared towards insider threat scenarios and externally accessible applications that provide access to publicly releasable data but should also be applied to internal systems as a best practice.

Check Content

Interview the application representative to determine if provisions are in place to notify users when an application is decommissioned. If provisions are not in place to notify users when an application is decommissioned, this is a finding.

Fix Text

Create and establish procedures to notify users when an application is decommissioned.

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-222660r879887_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-222660

Group Title: SRG-APP-000516

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

Controls tied to check. These are derived from the CCIs shown above.