Okuzeka
Cybersecurity vocabulary · Authentication and Access Control

Least privilege

Meaning in cybersecurity, with examples

nounCommon term

In cybersecurity, least privilege means: The principle that every user, program or system should get only the minimum access it needs to do its job, and nothing more.

In Turkish: en az yetki ilkesi, asgari yetki prensibi

How it is used

Usually heard as 'the principle of least privilege' (PoLP) in policies, audit findings and cloud design reviews. A typical finding reads: 'Service accounts do not follow least privilege.' It limits how far an attacker can get with one compromised account.

Example sentences

  1. Following least privilege, the backup account can read files but not delete them.

  2. Developers had full admin rights in production, which breaks least privilege.

Common collocations

  • principle of least privilege
  • enforce least privilege
  • least-privilege access
  • excessive privileges
  • access controlThe rules and technical measures that decide who or what can use a system, view data or enter a place, and what they are allowed to do there.
  • role-based access controlA way of managing permissions in which rights are given to roles, such as 'accountant' or 'admin', and users get access by being assigned to a role.
  • privilege escalationGaining higher access rights than one was given, for example moving from a normal user account to administrator, usually by abusing a flaw or misconfiguration.
  • zero trustA security model that trusts no user or device by default, even inside the company network, and checks identity and context for every request.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Authentication and Access Control

Practise with graded reading

Reading at the right level is the fastest way to make new words stick. Pick free English books by level: