Accounts used by application pools or service identities are in the local machine Administrators group (SharePoint Server)

APPLIES TO: 2013 2016 2019 Subscription Edition SharePoint in Microsoft 365

Rule Name: Accounts used by application pools or service identities are in the local machine Administrators group.

Summary: A user account that is used by application pools or services must have permissions of a domain user account and must not be a member of the Farm Administrators group or a member of the Administrators group on the local computer. Using highly privileged accounts for application pools or services poses a security risk to the farm, and could allow malicious code to execute.

Cause: Accounts that are used by application pools or services are members of the Administrators group on the local computer.

Resolution: Change the user account to a predefined account, or to a domain user account that is not a member of the Administrators group.

1. Verify that the user account that is performing this procedure is a member of the Farm Administrators group.

2. On the Central Administration home page, in the Security section, click Configure service accounts.

3. On the Service Accounts page, in the Select the component to update list, click the application pool or service that uses the credentials of a member of the Administrators group on the local computer as its security account.

4. In the Select an account list, click an appropriate account for this component — for example, the predefined account Network Service — or click Register new managed account, and then on the Register Managed Account page, specify the credentials and the password change settings that you want.

5. Click OK.

For more information, see Account permissions and security settings in SharePoint Server 2016.

Plan for administrative and service accounts in SharePoint Server

Plan for least-privileged administration in SharePoint Server