A security principle that every user, service, or process should have only the minimum permissions required to perform its function — and nothing more. Limits blast radius when credentials are compromised.
Least Privilege is one of the few security principles that's universally accepted in theory and widely violated in practice. It applies at every layer: database users (read-only where possible), service accounts (scoped to specific operations), human admins (just-in-time elevation instead of permanent admin rights), API tokens (per-integration, minimum permissions). Implementing it requires investment in identity tooling, role analysis, and ongoing entitlement review — which is why most environments default to over-privileging.
Refactoring a backend service that was running as DB superuser to use a dedicated DB user with only INSERT/UPDATE on three specific tables.
Least Privilege is the cheapest control with the largest blast-radius reduction — most major breaches escalate dramatically because the initial compromised account had far more privilege than it needed.
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