Least privilege is the security rule that every identity, whether a person, a program or an AI agent, gets only the access it needs to do its job, and nothing wider. An identity is anything that logs in to a system. If an identity is stolen or misused, least privilege limits how much damage it can do.
Here is how it works in general. When an identity is created, its job decides which systems it may open and which actions it may take there. It is given only those permissions. If it needs more for a short task, the extra access is granted for a limited time and recorded. Regular reviews then remove access that is no longer used. When a person changes jobs or leaves, their old access is removed.
The hard part is keeping it that way. Over the years, people collect access that nobody removes. Programs are often given wide permissions because it is quicker. And companies now have many more identities that belong to software than to people. These are called non-human identities.
Take, for example, an employee who moves from sales to finance. Identity governance software gives her the finance systems and removes her old sales access on the same day.
Consider an administrator who needs an account that can change anything. Privileged access management lends the account for one recorded session, and changes the password afterwards.
Say a program in the cloud only needs to read one storage folder, but it was given rights to delete everything. Cloud entitlement management finds permissions like this and narrows them.
The same rule now applies to AI agents. An agent should be able to issue a refund of a fixed amount, and nothing more. AI agent identity and security products give each agent its own narrow login.
How is least privilege different from zero trust? Zero trust says that every request must be checked, every time, even from inside the company's network. Least privilege decides how much a checked identity may do once it is let in. The two work together: zero trust checks who you are, and least privilege limits what you can reach.
Appears in
- Identity governance and administration (IGA)↗ Enterprise cybersecurityIGA removes a person's old access when they move teams, so they keep only what the new job needs.
- Directory services↗ Enterprise cybersecurityA directory such as Active Directory stores which groups each user belongs to, and so what they may open.
- Identity security posture management (ISPM)↗ Enterprise cybersecurityISPM finds accounts that have more permissions than their work needs, so the extra access can be removed.
- Privileged access management (PAM)↗ Enterprise cybersecurityPAM gives an administrator the all-powerful password for one recorded session only, then changes it.
- Cloud infrastructure entitlement management (CIEM)↗ Enterprise cybersecurityCIEM finds cloud accounts with wider permissions than they use, and suggests narrower ones.
- Vendor privileged access management↗ Enterprise cybersecurityVendor PAM lets a supplier's engineer log in to only the systems the job needs, for a limited time.
- Zero trust network access (ZTNA)↗ Enterprise cybersecurityZTNA connects each employee to only the apps they need, never to the whole network.
- Micro-segmentation↗ Enterprise cybersecurityMicro-segmentation lets each server talk only to the servers it needs, so an intruder cannot move around.
- Data access governance↗ Enterprise cybersecurityData access governance finds folders that too many employees can open, and removes the extra access.
- SAP access control↗ Governance, risk and compliance (GRC)SAP access control stops one employee from both creating a supplier and approving payments to it.
- AI agent identity and security↗ Generative AI applicationsAgent identity software gives an AI agent only the permissions its task needs, and logs what it does.
- MPC wallets and crypto custody↗ Crypto and tokenisationAn MPC wallet needs approval from several parties to move funds, so no single person can do it alone.
- Enterprise search↗ Collaboration softwareEnterprise search shows each employee only the documents they are already allowed to open.