Principle of Least Privilege

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Principle of least privilege (PoLP) means a principle is only granted the minimum possible sufficient rights, privileges, or information to complete tasks its authorized to perform.

• principle can be a user, system, process, or application
• mitigates risk of a compromised account
• involves a design phase, where analysis of business workflows determines what roles and permissions are required
• Improperly configured accounts can have two different impacts:
  • setting privileges that are too restrictive creates a large volume of support calls and reduces productivity
  • granting too many privileges to users weakens the system’s security and increases the risk of malware infection and a data breach
• Ensuring least privilege involves continual monitoring to prevent authorization creep
  • refers to a situation where a user acquires more and more rights
    • either directly or by being added to security groups or roles
• system of auditing should:
  • regularly review privileges
  • monitor group membership
  • review access control lists for each resource
  • and identify and disable unnecessary accounts

Implementing Least Privilege

• Security groups
• Account standardization
• Account management processes & procedures