Principle of Least Privilege

Definitions

1. A security principle that users, services, and applications should receive only the minimum permissions needed to perform their intended tasks and no more. It reduces blast radius by ensuring that compromise of one account or component does not automatically grant broad access.

   In plain English: Giving each user or system only the access it actually needs.

   Example: "The redesign followed the principle of least privilege, so the reporting service could read only aggregated metrics and nothing from the payment tables."

Related Terms

• RBAC
• ABAC
• Role-Based Access Control
• Permission
• Role
• Deny by Default
• Endpoint Privilege Management
• Least Authority
• Minimum Privilege
• MPA
• Overprivileged
• Permission Abuse
• Permission Model
• Privilege Management
• Resource Access
• Authorization Flow