In the context of information security, identity and access management (IAM) refer to the administration of user accounts and associated privileges so that only necessary privileges are provided to each account in order to limit the risk of unauthorized access. The idea behind IAM is that every user, process, or application should have the minimum set of permissions necessary to carry out its function in an organization, without granting unnecessary access rights that could introduce vulnerabilities to the network or data assets. An effective IAM strategy ensures only users with proper authorization can access data and applications and helps prevent unauthorized individuals from gaining access through malicious attacks or simply human error.
what does the principle of least privilege mean?
To limit access to only what is needed in order to do their job.
For example, a lawyer might need access to client information but not employee records, so they get a specific user account for each case.
The principle should always be applied carefully, as user accounts may require more privileges than initially anticipated if their responsibilities change during employment. These changes can be minimized with proper identity governance procedures that monitor user roles and adjust permissions as necessary. This ensures employees have only what they need to perform their functions but no more. A good strategy for IT environment safety is the principle of least privilege. Basically, it means that your less-privileged users will only have access to their appropriate programs. This reduces the chance of an attacker compromising one of your programs and spreading the risk to the entire system.
Benefits of least privilege principle.
1. Prevents the spread of malware.
2. Decrease chances of a cyber attack.
3. Minimizes level of compromise during the breach.
4. Improves user productivity.
5. Helps demonstrate compliance.
6. Helps the data classification.
7. Better Security.
8. Reduces the Privilege creep
When should you implement the principle of least privilege?
The principle of least privilege is a must for a good security posture for the organization and it should be considered in the initial design of security architecture for the enterprise. The principle of least privilege is widely recognized as an important design consideration in enhancing the protection of data and functionality from faults (fault tolerance) and malicious behavior.
There are several common situations in which you should consider implementing a least privilege policy, including when performing any kind of privileged user management and when dealing with cloud-based services. When you create new user accounts, especially as part of an identity governance effort, it’s important to carefully determine what type of access each one will require. If a particular account doesn’t need extensive permissions to perform its functions, it shouldn’t have them.
Examples of the principle of least privilege
Better security: Because he had administrative privileges, Edward Snowden was able to leak millions of NSA files; while his highest-level task was making backups of databases. Because of the Snowden leaks, the NSA has gone for the principle of least privilege to remove higher-level rights from 90% of its employees.
Minimized attack surface: Hackers gained access to 70 million Target customer accounts by infiltrating Target’s HVAC contractor with authorization to upload executable code. Failing to take a practice of least privilege Target increased the opportunity for a wide-scale attack.
Limited malware propagation: Malware that gains a foothold on a system backed by the principle of least privilege is often limited to the first section it infiltrates.
Improved audit readiness: It is possible to reduce the scope of an audit significantly when the system being audited was designed around the principle of least privilege. Furthermore, many regulatory compliance requirements call for POLP as an expectation.
How to Implement the Least Privilege in Your Organization
- To implement the principle of least privilege, organizations typically take one or some of the following steps, as part of a broader defense-in-depth cybersecurity strategy:
- Audit the full environment to locate privileged accounts – such as passwords, SSH keys, password hashes, and access keys – on-premise, in the cloud, in DevOps environments, and on endpoints.
- Eliminate unnecessary local administrator privileges and ensure that all human users and non-human users only have the privileges necessary to perform their work.
- Separate administrator accounts from standard accounts and isolates privileged user sessions.
- Provision of privileged administrator account credentials to a digital vault to begin securing and managing those accounts.
- Immediately rotate all administrator passwords after each use to invalidate any credentials that may have been captured by keylogging software and to mitigate the risk of a Pass-the-Hash.
- Continuously monitor all activity related to administrator accounts to enable rapid detection and alerting on anomalous activity that may signal an in-progress attack.
- Enable just-in-time access elevation, allowing users to access privileged accounts or run privileged commands on a temporary, as-needed basis.
- Consistently review all cloud IAM permissions and entitlements in AWS, Azure, and GCP environments and strategically remove excessive permissions to cloud workloads.