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Least Privilege

The principle of least privilege limits users, applications, and systems to only the access they need to perform their specific function, reducing the attack surface if an account or system is ever compromised.

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About this video

The principle of least privilege holds that every user, application, and system should be granted only the minimum access rights needed to perform its intended function. Expanding access beyond that threshold, even out of convenience or trust, introduces unnecessary risk that can be exploited if that account or resource is ever compromised. A trusted user with excessive permissions does not just represent a personal risk, they represent an open door for any adversary who manages to take control of their credentials or session. This principle extends well beyond individual user accounts. It applies equally to applications accessing network resources, systems communicating with other systems, and any other context where access rights can be defined and scoped. Treating least privilege as a universal baseline, rather than a case-by-case consideration, is what makes it effective as a defense-in-depth control and a standard practice in building resilient, security-conscious environments.

What you'll learn

Explain the principle of least privilege and its role in minimizing unauthorized access to systems, files, and network resources

What's covered

Principle of Least Privilege

Core Concept
- Minimize access rights
- Users, apps, systems
Juan Scenario
- Needs one file access
- Given full folder access
- Account gets compromised
- Attacker sees everything
Why It Matters
- Limits breach impact
- External adversary risk
Applies Broadly
- User access to shares
- System to system access
- App network access

Key terms

Least Privilege: A security principle that grants users and systems only the minimum access rights needed to perform their functions.
Access Control: A security mechanism that restricts access to resources based on policies, roles, or identity.
Privilege Escalation: An attack that exploits vulnerabilities to gain higher-level access than originally authorized.
Authorization: The process of determining what actions or resources an authenticated user is permitted to access.
Attack Surface: The total set of points in a system where an unauthorized user can attempt to enter or extract data.

Topics

Least Privilege Access Control Identity And Access Management Cybersecurity Attack Surface Reduction Zero Trust

Transcript

This commonly goes by the principle of least privilege. What we need to do is minimize how much access different applications or different users have into systems.

A scenario

Let us develop a little scenario here to drive home this point. Right here we have Juan. Juan needs access to a file that is in this share right here. So rather than just giving him access to that single file that Juan needs to access, we say, well, we really trust Juan, so it is not really a big deal to give him access to the whole folder. So we give him access to that whole folder, which has tons of private information in it, but that is now okay because we trust Juan.

But now let us say somebody ends up compromising Juan's account, and getting access through Juan's account now has access to all of those files and folders within this shared drive, and now they can see so much of the company. So even though we trusted Juan, Juan is not the one that was actually leveraged to get in and see everything. It was some adversary on the outside.

What least privilege means

Least privilege is this idea that users, applications and systems should only be granted the least amount of access rights to do their job.

We used the case of Juan gaining access to a share, but it could be some sort of system that has access to another system. It could be an application that has access to certain aspects on the network. So it is any kind of access, really, and we want to practice least privilege.

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