Glossary
Shared account restrictions refer to the security and compliance controls that prevent or limit the use of generic or shared user credentials, accounts accessed by more than one individual. These restrictions are designed to ensure that all user activity is attributable to a specific, identifiable individual, enabling accountability, auditability, and non-repudiation in secure environments.
Shared accounts create significant security and compliance risks. When multiple users log in using the same credentials, it becomes impossible to trace specific actions back to an individual, making it difficult to investigate incidents or enforce accountability. In regulated environments, this lack of traceability is considered a violation of basic cybersecurity principles.
Frameworks such as NERC CIP-007, IEC 62443-2-1, NIST 800-53, TSA SD02E, and NIS2 explicitly require that:
Failure to implement shared account restrictions can result in audit failures, undetected misuse, and non-compliance with critical infrastructure protection standards. Restricting shared accounts also supports other compliance practices like separation of duties, access reviews, and privileged user auditing.
Xona eliminates the need for users to log in with shared credentials by leveraging identity-based access control and credential vaulting and injection. This means users authenticate through their individual accounts, and Xona securely injects the necessary system credentials behind the scenes ensuring users never see or reuse privileged passwords.
All sessions are fully logged, recorded, and tied to individual identities, providing a clear, immutable audit trail. Administrative roles can be separated to control credential storage, injection, and oversight independently, further supporting regulatory mandates around least privilege and non-repudiation.
By removing the operational dependency on shared accounts while preserving access efficiency, Xona helps organizations meet compliance obligations across OT, IT, and hybrid environments.
Shared accounts obscure user accountability because multiple individuals access systems using the same credentials, making it impossible to determine who performed specific actions. This lack of traceability undermines incident investigations, non-repudiation, and internal controls, especially in regulated environments.
Cybersecurity frameworks such as NERC CIP, IEC 62443, TSA SD02E, NIS2, and NIST 800-53 explicitly require organizations to ensure that access is uniquely attributable to individuals and that shared or default credentials are either eliminated or tightly controlled.
By enforcing individual accountability, shared account restrictions strengthen adjacent security practices like separation of duties, privileged user auditing, access reviews, and least privilege enforcement, all of which require clearly defined user identities.
Xona enables users to log in with their individual identities and injects system credentials securely in the background, meaning users never see or reuse shared system passwords. This breaks the dependency on shared accounts while preserving operational workflows.
Yes. Xona logs every session with metadata such as user identity, access time, system accessed, and session duration, and can also capture full session video recordings to ensure each session is both traceable and auditable.
All Xona access activity is stored immutably and can be exported to SIEM, GRC, or compliance platforms, helping organizations demonstrate to auditors that shared credentials are not in use and that every session is attributed to a known user.
Originally published December 02, 2025
