It all starts with a PDF attachment. An employee doesn’t detect the signs of a social engineering attack, and so they open the attachment on their work-issued laptop, not knowing that their computer has local administrator access. Invisible malware then edits the laptop’s registry and erases the audit trails as it infiltrates the whole network. And this entire security breach could have been prevented with the principle of least privilege.
Identity and access management (IAM) issues aren’t technically the leading cause of data breaches, but they’re definitely contributors. Countless enterprises are still using static, role-based access methods from the pre-cloud era, but assigning local admin group privileges based on a user’s job title is a recipe for overprivileged users and widespread vulnerabilities.
The Principle of Least Privilege Means Minimal Trust
The principle of least privilege is a simple cybersecurity concept. It means assigning the least amount of capabilities possible to accomplish a task and limit the possible impact of identities and applications dynamically in order to limit risk exposure. A least-privilege model balances risk, productivity, security and privacy in environments where workloads and risks change constantly.
Minimal trust describes the concept of providing the least privilege possible to get the job done. It’s a risk-based model for IAM that requires a dynamic approach to security, privacy and privilege. The benefits of privileged access management a ..
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