Break glass vs backdoor accounts

Break glass and backdoor accounts, both bypass normal access. One is a fire extinguisher, and the other is a trapdoor.

Break glass accounts: The fire extinguisher 🧯

Break glass accounts are legitimate emergency access accounts. we may think of them as the “in case of emergency, break glass” option when your identity provider is down, MFA is locked out, or ransomware has frozen your administration console.

They’re:

• Pre-authorized and documented
• Highly privileged, often with domain admin or root access
• Rarely used, and ideally stored offline or in a secure vault
• Audited and monitored

They’re not inherently dangerous, but if mismanaged or overused, they become a liability. A stale password, a forgotten vault entry, or a lack of logging can turn our safety net into an attacker’s open gate.

Backdoor accounts: The trapdoor we don’t know is there 🚪

Backdoor accounts are unauthorized or hidden access paths, often created by attackers or sometimes by developers who think they need a fast debug access.

They’re:

• Undocumented, often hardcoded or concealed
• Designed to bypass authentication
• Used for persistence, stealth, and privilege escalation
• Hard to detect, especially if buried in firmware or compiled code

They’re undetected until an incident happens or a good audit detects them.

Both accounts might seem like secret ways in. But the difference is intent and control.

• Break glass is a controlled bypass, with governance and purpose.
• Backdoor is an uncontrolled vulnerability, often weaponized.

In practice:

• We must design and document break glass accounts with expiration, rotation, and alerting.
• We should hunt for backdoors with threat intel, anomaly detection, and code audits.

Break glass accounts are our safety net but treat them like loaded weapons. Backdoors are our blind spots, hunt them relentlessly.