Least Privilege in Practice: Roles Without Endless Lists
When a company's role model turns into an uncontrolled list of personal permissions, the overall security level drops significantly. Imagine a typical situation during an internal audit: it turns out that a technical support engineer has full access to a production database simply because they were granted a temporary exception months ago for an urgent incident resolution that was subsequently forgotten. Instead of creating unique rules for every individual employee, security architects are advised to implement systemic control mechanisms. These include dynamic Just-In-Time access, separation of conflicting duties, and restrictions on the use of privileged utilities. This approach allows for structured rights management and reduces the risks of unauthorized actions.
The resilience of corporate infrastructure against internal threats is achieved not by multiplying static roles with endless exceptions, but by implementing dynamic control and automated separation of duties based on assessed risks.
Security Architect: Designing a Role Model
The AC-6 (Least Privilege) control in the NIST SP 800-53 framework defines the requirement to grant users and processes only the minimum necessary access rights to perform their duties. The application of this control is determined by the requirements of a specific organization, as the standard describes general security requirements but does not contain instructions for technical implementation in individual infrastructures. The main goal of the principle of least privilege is to limit potential damage from accidental or intentional user actions. In practice, attempts to solve every new business need by creating a separate static role lead to administrative complexity and the emergence of excessive permissions.
The Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) model is not obsolete and should not be completely replaced by dynamic models. It remains a reliable foundation for most corporate systems. However, to increase efficiency, it is recommended to supplement it with mechanisms for temporary rights activation. Instead of designing a unique role for every possible combination of duties, security architects should separate rights into permanent ones, which cover daily routines, and temporary ones, which are granted only upon request. This allows the core of the role model to remain structured and simplifies regular compliance audits.
- NIST SP 800-53 AC-6: Defines the requirement to grant users and processes only the minimum necessary access rights.
- ISO/IEC 27001 Annex A.5.3: Requires the separation of conflicting duties based on risk assessment and business needs.
- ISO/IEC 27001 Annex A.8.18: Focuses on limiting and monitoring the use of privileged utilities.
- CISA Zero Trust Model: Describes the evolution of identity management from a traditional level to an optimal one.
Business Process Owner: Separation of Conflicting Duties
Confusion often arises between organizational principles and purely technical limitations. The ISO/IEC 27001 Annex A.5.3 standard describes the Segregation of Duties (SoD) control, which requires the separation of conflicting duties to reduce the risks of unauthorized modification or use of assets. The implementation of this control must be based on the organization's risk assessment and business needs. Separation of duties reduces the likelihood of abuse but does not make violations completely impossible, as the risk of collusion or bypassing procedures always remains.
A typical conditional scenario is the separation of database administrator and security auditor rights. A DBMS administrator has technical access to tables and configurations, but they should not have rights to change or delete audit logs. The function of audit log integrity control should belong to the security auditor, who, in turn, does not have rights to modify business data. This approach makes covert changes more difficult. At the same time, the auditor does not need rights to delete logs; their role consists solely of viewing and analyzing security events.
System Administrator: Temporary Access Management
According to the CISA Zero Trust maturity model, which was developed primarily for US federal agencies and requires adaptation to the needs of commercial organizations, access is granted dynamically at the optimal level based on the Just-In-Time (JIT) principle. JIT access complements the role model with temporary rights activation, which allows for limiting the duration of privileges. This helps avoid situations where users accumulate excessive rights after projects are completed or incidents are resolved.
Let's consider a conditional scenario: a technical support engineer needs to perform scheduled maintenance on a server. Instead of providing them with a permanent administrator account, the engineer creates a request in the access management system. After approval, the account receives the necessary rights for a limited time. After the work is completed, the system revokes the privileges, and the session log is sent to the security log. For emergency situations (break-glass), an agreed-upon procedure is applied, which may require either automatic notification with retrospective auditing or manual approval by the duty security officer, depending on the organization's internal regulations.
- Inventory Collect existing roles, exceptions, and permission owners.
- Temporary Authorities Identify operations that require time-limited rights activation.
- Completion Control Verify access revocation after the agreed-upon period expires.
- Review Agree on regular permission reviews and emergency access procedures.
Auditor: Regular Review and Utility Control
The use of privileged utilities capable of bypassing standard access control measures, according to ISO/IEC 27001 Annex A.8.18, must be restricted and subject to monitoring. This helps reduce the risks of unauthorized changes in the system. A conditional security breach scenario is the execution of a low-level system configuration editing utility without recording it in the main event logs. To reduce this risk, the execution of such utilities should be restricted. At the same time, audit logs themselves must be stored in a way that makes modification by third parties difficult. It should not be assumed that all utilities must be accessible only to JIT service accounts; the choice of technical solution depends on the architecture of the specific system.
When developing solutions based on the UnityBase low-code platform, IQusion specialists analyze the platform's technical capabilities for configuring access rights. The platform contains built-in Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and audit logging mechanisms. Questions regarding the application of additional control measures, such as Row-Level Security (RLS) or integration with external temporary access systems, are decided individually during the design of the specific system's architecture in accordance with customer requirements. Confirmation of compliance requires a separate verification of implementation and organizational procedures.
| Stage | Algorithm Step | Input Data | Expected Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Inventory of static exceptions | Existing access matrix, authorization logs | Registry of active individual permissions |
| 2 | Classification of critical operations | Business processes, ISO 27001 Annex A.5.3 requirements | List of functions for separation of duties |
| 3 | Designing JIT access templates | CISA maturity model, support scenarios | Parameterized rules for temporary sessions |
| 4 | Implementation of isolated auditing | SIEM configuration or built-in audit trail | Reduction of unauthorized change risk |
FAQ
How to handle emergency access requests (break-glass) in a JIT model?
For emergency situations, an agreed-upon procedure (break-glass) is applied. Depending on the organization's internal regulations, the activation of such rights may require either automatic notification of the security department with mandatory retrospective auditing or manual approval by the duty officer.
What to do if legacy systems do not support dynamic access?
In such cases, compensating control measures are applied. For example, access to a legacy system can be restricted via an intermediate server (jump server), where temporary access and additional session monitoring are implemented.
Does using a platform like UnityBase guarantee automatic ISO 27001 certification?
No. The platform provides technical capabilities for implementing specific access control requirements. Achieving certification is a complex process that depends on organizational measures, risk assessment, and regular review of security policies by the organization itself.
