What Is the Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP)?

The principle of least privilege (PoLP), sometimes called the principle of minimal privilege, is a common sense approach to access control for enterprises. Users, systems and processes should only be given access to the networks, data and other resources required to perform their assigned function, and no more. Failure to adhere to PoLP can lead to massive data breaches.

Privilege Creep Defined

Privilege creep is the gradual accumulation of access rights or permissions by users beyond what they need to perform their job functions. It often occurs when access is not revoked after role changes or project completions, increasing the risk of security breaches or compliance violations. The principle of least privilege aims to fight privilege creep by only granting users the necessary, but needed privileges to perform their given job function.

Unchecked privilege creep not only increases the blast radius of a potential breach, but it also makes detecting malicious behavior more difficult. When users have access to systems they no longer need, unusual activity may go unnoticed because it's technically "allowed" under their outdated permissions. This excess access becomes especially dangerous in the hands of compromised accounts or insider threats.

Permitting all users to have the same access to sensitive data and resources is a risk businesses cannot afford. The principle of least privilege is a framework that helps secure your resources from bad actors, including malicious and error-prone insiders. In addition to financial losses and damage to your brand, bad actors can install ransomware, disrupt operations and use stolen personal data for extortion or other crimes. Keeping access limited to just the resources a user actually needs reduces the amount of damage that can be done.

Benefits of the Principle of Least Privilege Include:

• Reduce the attack surface. By limiting access to resources to just those that are required by each user for their specific function, cybercriminals that take over accounts will be kept from accessing all resources.
• Limit lateral movement of bad actors. Bad actors often require privileged access to reach sensitive systems, and without that access, a loss of record can be  thwarted.
• Adhere to regulatory compliance. Some regulations require the principle of least privilege to be in place to comply with industry regulations and prevent penalties.
• Increase accountability. By limiting permissions, you can more easily keep track of the users and systems with access to sensitive data, networks and other resources.
• Improve performance and the user experience. Keeping unnecessary users out of systems and resources increases productivity for the users that do need access and reduces confusion for those that don't.

Real-World Least Privilege: What It Looks Like in Action

In practice, the principle of least privilege (PoLP) means users are granted only the permissions required to read, write, or execute tasks directly tied to their responsibilities—and nothing more. Temporary access can be provisioned for short-term needs, ensuring users don’t hold onto sensitive permissions longer than necessary. Without these controls, it's easy for organizations to inadvertently create a bloated ecosystem of overprivileged users, dramatically increasing the potential impact of both internal and external threats.

Adopting PoLP as a default policy helps prevent these exposures. Especially in the case of system administrators—often the most targeted accounts—overreaching privileges should be tightly scoped and carefully segmented. Just because someone can have root access doesn’t mean they should. When new systems or applications are deployed, organizations should disable all nonessential services and settings, including default permissions that are often overlooked.

Finally, logging is critical. Every authentication attempt and access control change should be recorded. These logs provide visibility into suspicious behaviors like repeated login failures or unauthorized privilege escalations. Regular privilege reviews ensure users haven’t quietly amassed excessive access over time. Least privilege isn’t a one-time configuration—it’s an ongoing discipline.

When Apps Know Too Much: Least Privilege for Software

It’s not just people who get overprivileged—applications do too. When software is granted broader access than it actually needs, it can introduce serious risk, especially if exploited by attackers. These risks often come in two forms: unused permissions and reducible permissions.

Unused permissions are those granted to an app but never actually used. For instance, an app might be given permission to access a user's calendar, but if it never calls a calendar API, that permission serves no purpose—and becomes a liability. If the app is compromised, an attacker can exploit that unused access to move laterally or exfiltrate sensitive data.

Reducible permissions are even more subtle. These are overly broad permissions that could be replaced with narrower ones without affecting functionality. For example, if an app only reads user profiles, it shouldn’t have write permissions as well. Keeping permissions laser-focused helps reduce vertical privilege escalation risks

The remedy? Audit your apps. Ensure every permission has a reason to exist, and downgrade wherever possible. Less access means fewer doors for attackers to walk through.

Zero Trust isn’t just a buzzword—it’s a complete security philosophy built on the assumption that no user or device can be inherently trusted. In this model, access must be earned, validated, and strictly limited at every point of entry. This is where the principle of least privilege becomes indispensable.

Rather than giving users broad access once inside a VPN or internal network, Zero Trust insists on segmenting and scoping access at the finest level. That means Dave can give Melissa a backup key to the house—but not one that opens every drawer inside it. With PoLP, every door requires a separate key, and only the necessary ones are distributed.

Legacy models that rely on perimeter-based security—like VPNs—grant users access to an entire internal environment once authenticated. But in a Zero Trust + PoLP setup, access is highly contextual and dynamic. A marketing employee can’t suddenly browse finance systems, and even an admin must reauthenticate before performing privileged actions. This alignment is critical for modern cloud-first, hybrid, and remote-first environments, where the traditional notion of “inside the firewall” no longer exists.

Implementing the Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP) is not just a one-time policy decision—it’s a living framework that must be embedded across people, processes, and platforms. Done well, PoLP becomes a proactive security measure that hardens your environment against internal abuse, credential compromise, and lateral movement. Here’s how to make that vision a reality.

1. Start with a Full Privilege Audit

Begin by scanning your entire IT ecosystem—on-premises and in the cloud—to uncover every instance of privileged access. This includes admin accounts, stored credentials (like SSH keys and API tokens), password hashes, and IAM roles assigned to both human users and non-human identities (e.g., bots, service accounts, and CI/CD pipelines). Many organizations are surprised by just how many privileged credentials exist in forgotten corners of their environments. Without visibility, PoLP can’t be enforced.

2. Strip Away Unnecessary Admin Rights

One of the most immediate ways to reduce your risk is to eliminate local administrator privileges that serve no legitimate purpose. Apply this rule universally: no user—human or machine—should have broader access than absolutely necessary. Grant only what’s needed to perform a defined job function, and avoid default admin configurations that come bundled with software or OS deployments.

3. Separate and Isolate Privileged Roles

Privileged accounts (like root or domain admins) should never be used for day-to-day operations. Instead, create separate accounts for administrative tasks and standard use. Then, isolate these privileged sessions using jump boxes, bastion hosts, or session management tools to prevent their abuse or hijacking. Segmentation is your ally here: the harder it is to reach high-value systems, the lower the risk of compromise.

4. Enforce Immediate Credential Rotation

After every privileged session, rotate associated passwords or keys. This practice renders any captured credentials (via keyloggers or memory scraping) immediately useless. It also mitigates the risk of “Pass-the-Hash” attacks, in which stolen hash values are reused to impersonate privileged users.

5. Monitor All Privileged Activity in Real Time

Privileged access is a high-value target—treat it that way. Implement real-time monitoring and behavioral analytics to flag unusual activity, such as privilege escalation, failed login attempts, or access from unfamiliar locations or devices. Alerts should trigger automatic investigations or enforcement actions, particularly in environments where privileged misuse can cause significant operational or financial damage.

6. Enable Just-in-Time Access

Instead of permanently granting high-level access, adopt a just-in-time (JIT) model. This allows users to request privileged access for a limited window—say, to perform a patch or system update—and revokes it automatically once the task is complete. JIT reduces standing privileges, narrows the attack surface, and makes abuse easier to detect.

7. Prune Cloud Entitlements Regularly

Cloud environments like AWS, Azure, and GCP are notoriously complex when it comes to permission sprawl. Audit Identity and Access Management (IAM) configurations regularly to identify excessive, stale, or unused privileges. Lean on tools that assess effective permissions—not just what’s granted, but what’s actively used—and automate the process of revoking unnecessary access.

Setting up the parameters to implement the principle of least privilege starts at the planning stage and continues throughout the lifecycle of your enterprise. A review of current practices and access settings is a good place to start.

Adopt a Zero Trust Security Approach

Zero Trust approach to security is based on the philosophy that enterprises should trust no one and verify everything, because external and internal threats exist at all times. Authentication and authorization are important steps in limiting access and protecting resources. Authentication requires users to prove their identities. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) requires users to provide two or more authentication factors, so hackers with compromised credentials will be stopped before entering your system. After users are authenticated, enterprises use authorization to control access to resources based on PoLP, which can be preassigned by role or customized for the user.

Identity and access management (IAM) solutions to build authentication and authorization policies are available for workforces, customers and partners.

Use Privileged Access Management (PAM) Solutions for Increased Security

Privileged accounts are a prime target for bad actors, because administrator-level privileges allow greater access and control to data, networks, systems and other resources. Privileged access management (PAM) solutions allow organizations to monitor, secure and control access to resources for privileged accounts. To further limit access to resources, just-in-time (JIT) privileges can be set for specific projects or timeframes. Privileged access management (PAM) solutions are used in conjunction with identity and access management (IAM) solutions, and they work together to support and enhance each other.

Ensure Application Programming Interface (API) Security

An application programming interface (API) is used to communicate between computers or applications, but can be overlooked as a cybersecurity vulnerability. Enterprises and programmers that lack security protocols during development put resources at risk. Four items on the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) API Security Top 10 (including the top two) relate directly to a lack of access control rules and strong authentication.

Conduct Ongoing Audits

Don't let things fall through the cracks after the initial implementation. Frequently review users, accounts, processes and systems to make sure they can only access necessary resources. People leave jobs, third-party vendors and partners change, and systems get updated or replaced. Ongoing security audits allow you to keep track of privileges that need to be revoked or updated.

There are numerous examples of ensuring users are limited to just the resources they need, including:

• An employee on the sales team has access to the customer relationship management (CRM) system, but not confidential HR personnel files.
• A temporary employee hired for data entry is able to add information to certain files, but cannot alter formulas, download files or access other files.
• A customer has access to information needed to buy products and maintain their own account, but nothing more.

Please watch this video to see how people working remotely during the pandemic increased the adoption of Zero Trust security.