Least Privilege

Kind: principle

Layer: Security Core

Aliases: Principle of Least Privilege, PoLP

Record: architecture:least-privilege

Severity: mandatory

Scope: user, service, process, data

Canonical: Ontology

A design rule that each user, service and process holds only the permissions its task needs.

Listed in Architecture principles, after Defense in Depth and before Zero Trust Architecture.

Requires

• Access Control
• Minimal Permissions

Reinforces

• Zero Trust Architecture
• Damage Limitation

Enables

• Reduced Blast Radius

Conflicts with

• Broad Admin Access

In tension with

• Operational Convenience

Tensions

• Least Privilege / Operational Convenience

Contracts

• Least Privilege Over Broad Privilege

Violated by

• Broad Admin Access

Refactored by

• Least-Privilege Credential

Severity

• mandatory

Category

• Security / Privacy / Compliance / Governance

Reinforced by

• Authorization
• Session Management

Linked from

• The deploy is a file operation
• The canon is grouped twice
• Systems built around a model
• Security / Privacy / Compliance / Governance
• Core Vocabulary
• Security Privacy Compliance
• Architectural Rules
• Severity levels
• The resolutions