Section 15 · Admin & Management
Admin Features
Admin feature parity and admin panel security controls
This guide walks you through auditing a project's admin features, ensuring admin parity with user-facing features and proper security controls on admin access.
The Goal: Empowered and Accountable
Admins need power to help users, but that power must be traceable. The goal is full operational capability without direct database access, with every action logged and access revocable in minutes.
- Parity — Every major user-facing feature has admin equivalents for viewing, managing, and debugging
- Enumerable — All admin users listable with access levels; periodic reviews ensure minimal footprint
- Tracked — Admin logins logged with timestamps and IPs; unusual patterns detectable
- Auditable — Admin actions (especially destructive ones) recorded with enough detail to reconstruct incidents
- Revocable — Compromised accounts disabled immediately via UI, active sessions invalidated
Before You Start
- Identify the admin panel/interface location (in-app, separate app, etc.)
- Understand what user-facing features exist in the project
- Have access to review admin user management (or ask user for evidence)
Admin Panel Security
Can enumerate all admin users, periodic process exists to review who has access, and easy to suspend users who shouldn't have access.
“Who still has admin access that probably shouldn't?”
Admin logins are tracked with timestamp, IP address, and success/failure. Login history is viewable for security review.
“Would you notice if someone logged in from a foreign country?”
Admin actions (especially destructive ones) are logged with who, what, when, and affected resource. Recent history is queryable.
“When was the last time you audited what your admins actually did?”
Admin users can be disabled via UI (not DB), disable takes effect immediately with session invalidation, no code deploy required.
“Could you lock out a compromised admin in under 60 seconds?”
Automated tooling or clear runbook exists for auditing admin access. Can identify inactive admins, over-privileged users, missing MFA.
“How often does anyone actually audit admin permissions?”