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Assign Owners to orphaned accounts in your workspace

This article describes how to assign Owners to orphaned accounts in your workspace through the Security Hub.

Cerby Team avatar
Written by Cerby Team
Updated over a week ago

Who can use this feature?

  • Workspace Owners, Super Admins, and Admins

  • Only supported using the Cerby web app

In Cerby, orphaned accounts are accounts that remain in the workspace but don't have a valid Owner assigned to them. For example, if a workspace member is deprovisioned from the workspace and they were the Owner of an account, the account becomes an orphan.

Orphaned accounts can pose a significant security risk if overlooked, as they continue to hold access privileges without being actively monitored.

As a workspace Owner, Super Admin, or Admin, you can quickly identify all orphaned accounts through the Security Hub and proactively assign one or more Owners. Additionally, by not having owners, the following account management capabilities are lost in Cerby:

  • Sharing or removing access from the account.

  • Updating the account settings.

  • Managing account security, including multi-factor authentication (MFA) and password rotation.

  • Monitoring user events through the Activity view.

IMPORTANT: There is a known issue where an account is still considered orphaned if no active user in the workspace is assigned as the Owner, even when one or more teams have access to that account.

Assign Owners to orphaned accounts in your workspace

To assign one or more Owners to orphaned accounts in your workspace, you must complete the following steps:

  1. Log in to your Cerby workspace.

  2. Select the Security Hub option from the left navigation drawer. The Security Hub page is displayed.

  3. Click the Assign owners option in the Orphaned accounts card. The Orphaned accounts page is displayed with information about orphaned accounts.

  4. Select one or multiple orphaned accounts to assign one or more Owners:

    • For one account:

      1. Click the More options () icon at the right of the orphaned account. A drop-down menu is displayed.

    • For multiple accounts:

      1. Select the orphaned accounts using the checkboxes to the left of the account names. A menu is displayed at the bottom of the page indicating the number of orphaned accounts you have selected.
        ​IMPORTANT: You can only select 20 accounts at a time.

  5. Select the Assign Owner option. The Assign Owner dialog box is displayed.

    1. Enter the name of the member in the search bar. The members that match the name are displayed on a list automatically.

    2. Select the corresponding member from the list. The member is listed in the field.

    3. Repeat steps a and b as necessary to select multiple members.

      IMPORTANT: Only 20 workspace members can be assigned as Owners at a time.

    4. Click the Next button. The Assign account Owners dialog box is displayed.

  6. (Optional) Write a custom message to the assigned Owners in the Message field.

  7. Click the Assign Owners button. The assigned Owners receive an email notifying them of their assignment. A success message is displayed, and the selected orphaned accounts are removed from the list.

Now you are done.

Understand the temperature widget for the orphaned accounts

The temperature widget is placed at the top right corner of the Orphaned accounts page. It provides a quick, visual gauge of the number of orphaned accounts and the relative risk they pose to your workspace. If the number of orphaned accounts exceeds a defined safe limit, the widget shifts to a higher temperature, signaling the need for attention.

Figure 1 shows an example of the temperature widget.

Figure 1. The Temperature widget is located at the top right corner of the Orphaned accounts page

The widget displays various colors representing the volume and severity of orphaned accounts. The colors represent the following:

  • Green means zero accounts are orphaned

  • Yellow means fewer than five accounts are orphaned

  • Orange means fewer than 10 accounts are orphaned

  • Red means more than or equal to 10 accounts are orphaned

View the owner assignations for orphaned accounts in the Activity view

As a workspace Owner, Super Admin, or Admin, you can track when orphaned accounts have been assigned to an Owner through the Activity page in Cerby using the Account Owner Assigned filter in the Event field.

To learn more about the events in the Activity view and how to filter them, refer to the following articles:

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