Security & Compliance

  • 9 min read

Understanding Principle of Least Privilege: In-Depth Guide

Team Zluri

4th October, 2023

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Understanding the principle of least privilege (PoLP) is crucial for IT admins. It helps balance user convenience with secure access to the organization's SaaS apps and critical data. Employees may face difficulty performing their tasks if access restrictions are too stringent. Similarly, if IT admins are too lenient while managing access, it can create gaps for potential attacks. 

That is where PoLP comes into play, helping your IT admins achieve this equilibrium, ensuring the protection of critical SaaS app data while maintaining workforce productivity. In this blog, we’ll walk you through the PoLP concept, its importance, best practices, and more to provide you with a deeper understanding of the concept.  

Before we dive into details about how it works, its importance & benefits, and how your IT admins can implement it. Let's start with the basics and understand the principle of least privilege (PoLP).

What Is The Principle Of Least Privilege Access Control?

The principle of least privilege access control widely referred to as least privilege, and PoLP is the security concept in which user(s) (employee(s)) are granted the minimum level of access/permissions to the organization's SaaS app, data, or system that is required to perform his/her job functions.  

Furthermore, least access privilege is widely acknowledged as a cybersecurity strategy and serves as a basic measure in safeguarding privileged access to valuable SaaS apps, data, and other organizational assets. It isn't limited solely to human access but can also be applied to applications, systems, or connected devices requiring specific privileges or permissions. 

For instance, service accounts, which are non-human accounts, possess a certain level of access permissions to execute specific IT tasks. So, by enforcing the least privilege access controls, your IT admins can ensure that non-human tools only have the access/permissions that they precisely require and nothing beyond that.  

But, how does least access privilege work? The principle of least privilege access works by providing only limited access to accomplish a specific task. By adhering to this principle, your IT team can minimize the likelihood of hackers obtaining access to devices, critical apps, or data by compromising a low-level user app, account, or device. To help you understand better, here are a few examples of how the principle of least privilege works:

• User Accounts With Least Privilege: Imagine an employee whose main job is to put information into a database. With the principle of least privilege, they should only be able to add new information to that database. If their computer gets infected with malware or if they accidentally click on a harmful link in an email, the damage is limited to the database itself. But if this employee has superuser access (like being the "boss" of the computer), the infection could spread everywhere in the computer system.

• MySQL Accounts With Least Privilege: Let's say you have a database setup using MySQL and follow the principle of least privilege. For a feature that lets users sort data, you should use a MySQL account that can only do sorting. If someone tries to breach that feature, they can only mess up the sorting, not delete all the data. However, if the account can delete data, an attacker/ hacker/unauthorized user could potentially delete the whole database.

• Just-in-Time Least Privilege Access: If users only need special access rights occasionally, they should normally work with fewer access permissions. Furthermore, for such access, using temporary credentials makes it even safer because they are only valid for a short time, reducing the chance of unauthorized access.
  
  Now that you are familiar with what actually the least access privilege principle is and how it works. Let's proceed further and understand why it's important to enforce in your organization. 

Why Is There A Need To Enforce Least Privilege Access Policy?

Individual users or entities with excessive privileges, whether they are human or automated systems (machine/ non-human tools or accounts), they have the potential to create a gap for security breaches. Without proper protection, bad actors (hackers), malware, or even unauthorized users (insider threats) from within the organization can easily misuse, exploit, or actively compromise highly sensitive data, causing much damage. 

This is why implementing PoLP becomes crucial. It enables your IT team to balance user convenience and access security by ensuring users (employee(s)) have a minimal privilege of access required to operate specific tasks. At the same time, mitigating such security risks and safeguarding the organization's SaaS app data against potential cyberattacks. To better understand why the least access privilege principle is essential, we've compiled some benefits of implementing the least privilege access policy. 

Benefits Of Enforcing Least Privilege Access Policy

Below, we've listed a few of the advantages of enforcing least privilege access control: 

• Minimizes surface attack: Your IT team can decrease the broad attack surface by restricting/limiting access privileges. By doing so, your IT team can restrict the pathway malicious factors can get through to gain unauthorized access to sensitive data. However, a wide attack surface with numerous entry points is challenging to defend against, so by limiting admins and superuser access privileges, your team can seamlessly prevent, detect, and mitigate cyberattacks and security breaches. 

• Controls malware spread: When users are granted excessive access rights, malware can exploit these elevated privileges to move laterally within your network, potentially launching attacks on other networked connected computers. So, by managing endpoints with the principle of least privilege, your team can limit users' ability to install unauthorized software, minimizing the risk of malware propagation.

• Enhances operational efficiency: By properly implementing the principle of least privilege, your IT team can improve workforce (employee(s)) productivity, strengthen system stability, and increase fault tolerance. It reduces system downtime that might otherwise occur due to security breaches, malware propagation, or application compatibility issues.

• Simplifies the process of preparing for an audit: Besides meeting common compliance requirements, adhering to the principle of least privilege policy helps organizations prepare for audits by establishing and maintaining internal company policies. Further, by providing an audit trail of privileged activities within the network as evidence, you can show auditors or regulatory authorities that all access policies, practices, and security regulations are met without fail. 

• Reduces errors: Even well-intentioned users might accidentally execute incorrect commands or delete critical information. So, by enforcing the least privilege access control model, your IT team reduces potential damage and errors by restricting the scope of such actions.
  
  Now that you know the importance of the least privilege access policy, let's move further and learn how to implement PoLP in your organization.

How To Implement Least Privilege Access Control Policy? 

To effectively implement the principle of least privilege policy, your IT team needs to centrally manage and safeguard privileged accounts and their credentials for both non-humans (service accounts) and users. However, your IT team also needs to include applications, devices (like IoT devices), processes, and services in the least privileged access management process, as neglecting any unattended accounts within these categories can pose a security risk.

Furthermore, you must opt for a SaaS management platform enabling your team to authorize and authenticate privileged system access to streamline the process. And once the least access privilege policy is implemented, your team needs to thoroughly conduct regular audits of privileged access, enforce time-limited access practices, and effectively monitor the access environment to protect sensitive SaaS app data. 

To ensure this policy is effectively enforced, we've compiled a list of best practices that your IT team can follow:

• Conduct a thorough privilege audit: As we know, visibility is critical in an access environment, so conducting regular or periodic access audits of all privileged accounts can help your team gain complete visibility. This audit includes reviewing privileged accounts and credentials held by employees, contractors, and third-party vendors, whether on-premises, accessible remotely, or in the cloud. However, your team must also focus on default and hard-coded credentials, which IT teams often overlook.

• Establish the least privilege as the default: Start by granting new accounts the minimum privileges required for their tasks and eliminate or reconfigure default permissions on new systems or applications. Further, use role-based access control to help your team determine the necessary privileges for a new account by providing general guidelines based on roles and responsibilities. Also, your team needs to update and adjust access level permissions when the user's role changes; this will help prevent privilege creep.

• Enforce separation of privileges: Your team can prevent over-provisioning by limiting local administrator privileges. Firstly, segregate administrative accounts from standard accounts, even if they belong to the same user, and isolate privileged user sessions. Then, grant administrative privileges (such as read, write, and execute permissions) only to the extent necessary for the user to perform their specific administrative tasks. This will help your team prevent granting users unnecessary or excessive control over critical systems, which could lead to security vulnerabilities or misconfigurations.

• Provide just-in-time, limited access: To maintain least-privilege access without hindering employee workflows, combine role-based access control with time-limited privileges. Further, replace hard-coded credentials with dynamic secrets or use one-time-use/temporary credentials. This will help your team grant temporary elevated access permissions when users need it, for instance, to complete specific tasks or short-term projects. 

• Keep track and evaluate privileged access: Continuously monitor authentications and authorizations across your networked systems and ensure all the individual actions are traceable. Additionally, record all keystrokes and monitor RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) and SSH (Secure Shell) sessions comprehensively, and use automated tools to swiftly identify any unusual activity or potential issues.
  
  These best practices are designed to enhance the security of your privileged accounts, data, and assets while ensuring compliance adherence and improving operational security without disrupting user workflows.
  
  Now that you clearly understand the least privilege access control, why not opt for an efficient SaaS management platform (SMP) like Zluri to streamline the enforcement of PoLP. But why Zluri? What does it offer? How does it ensure effective PoLP implementation? Here's a quick read-through.

Seamlessly Enforce The Principle Of Least Privilege With Zluri

In an era where data breaches and cyber threats are rising, enforcing the principle of least privilege has become pivotal to safeguarding your organization's critical assets like SaaS apps, data, and systems. With Zluri’s SMP, your team can seamlessly and effectively implement this fundamental security principle, ensuring that users and systems access only what they absolutely need. Here's how it does that:

Upon onboarding, Zluri Grants New Hires Only Limited Access To required Applications 

Why is it even essential to enforce the least privilege access control policy at the time of onboarding? Previously, the IT team provided new employees with complete access to applications, primarily for convenience. So that they don't have to repeatedly grant them different levels of access permissions when required. 

However, this approach proved to be problematic as it led to a significant number of security breaches. In addition, the IT team found it challenging to track which user accounts were infected and what level of permissions those users held.

• To make things more clear, let's take an example: A new employee named Sam was granted complete access to BambooHR upon onboarding. Unfortunately, due to an oversight, Sam's account was compromised by hackers or other external parties, and now the hacker erased all the data stored in Bamboo HR. 
  
  This incident shows the potential harm that can be caused by granting excessive access privileges upon onboarding, which could have been prevented if the IT team had ensured limited access for new employees during the onboarding process.
  
  Zluri, the advanced solution, is designed in a way to avoid such incidents. Upon onboarding, it enables your IT team to verify every new employee's identity and grant them limited access to systems, SaaS apps, and data, as per their role, position, and department. This further helps your team ensure that only the right individuals have access to applications with the right level of permissions. Also, it eliminates the likelihood of over-provisioning or granting excess privileges to new employees. 

Provides Just-In-Time Access To Employees When Needed 

Occasionally, employees may require access to certain applications to complete a particular task within a defined time frame. Usually, the IT team will grant them access and forget about it; they don't proceed further and revoke access after completion of the duration and task. However, this negligence can become a root cause of security breaches and has a far-reaching impact on critical data. 

So Zluri securely meets this access requirement by enabling your IT team to grant employees temporary or just-in-time access to required applications for a specific period of time. Further, once the duration is completed, it automatically revokes the access permissions from the employee without any delay with the help of its auto-remediation capability. So, your IT team no longer has to worry about keeping track of dates to revoke access. 

Note: if there is involvement of critical applications where an extra layer of security is required, your IT team can manually revoke the access. 

• For instance, Sally wanted access to Planful for a month to manage and estimate the budget for a project. So, with Zluri, your IT team can grant Sally temporary access to Planful and then schedule a date (30 days after) to revoke access. After 30 days, Zluri will promptly revoke access to Planful from Sally. This way, your team improves employee experience by granting required access to Sally while maintaining security.

Continuously Monitors And Analyses Privileged Access 

Zluri thoroughly monitor the access environment and analyses if any users have more access than required. Further, if any violation is detected, your IT team can adjust the user access permissions to prevent any breaches that may occur from employees holding excessive permissions. 

That's not all; Zluri also sends real-time alerts if any users try to access applications that are not permitted to access as per their role. This proactive alert enables your team to take immediate action, like restricting or suspending user accounts if necessary, to maintain access control integrity and security measures.

Conducts Periodic Audits 

Zluri conducts regular/periodic audits to ensure each employee has the required level of permissions to SaaS apps, data, and systems. If there is any misalignment in their access permissions, your IT team and reviewers can run deprovisioning playbooks or modifying access playbooks. This way your team can revoke access permissions that are not required for employees' roles or modify the access. 

Furthermore, Zluri also documents the entire audit process and generates audit logs and reports to show as evidence that your IT team has implemented the least privilege access control policy effectively without fail. This helps in meeting stringent compliance requirements like SOX, in which adhering to the principle of least privilege access control is one of the security requirements. 

Now that you know how Zluri can be your gaming-changing solution to enforce the least privilege access control policy. Why wait any longer? Book a demo now and view all the other exquisite access management capabilities that Zluri offers to control, manage, and govern user access effectively while strengthening security posture and adhering to evolving compliance standards. 

Also Read: Access Rights Management - A Comprehensive Guide

About the author

Team Zluri

Team Zluri