Creating a cybersecurity plan is essential to your business’s success. With a cybersecurity plan, you’ll know the threats to vulnerabilities to which your business is susceptible, and you’ll know how to respond to those threats and vulnerabilities. When creating a cybersecurity plan, though, you should consider using the Principle of Least Privilege (POLP).
Overview of POLP
Also known as the principle of minimal privilege (POLP) is a cybersecurity concept that states that users should be granted the bare minimum rights at the shortest duration for the resources to which they request access. Most information technology (IT) infrastructures feature user accounts. Users, such as employees, must log in to an account to access resources. With POLP, users are given the lowest level of rights needed to access requested resources.
Why You Should Use POLP
Why should you use POLP in your business’s cybersecurity plan? The main benefit is a lower risk of cyber attacks and breaches. POLP ensures that even if a user account is compromised, the hacker behind the attack won’t have access to all resources. Rather, the hacker will have the same rights as the account’s rightful user. Therefore, cyber attacks are less common — and they are less destructive — when using POLP.
Using POLP can also provide greater IT stability. POLP is based on restricted rights. Users can have exclusive rights, or they can have restricted rights. In terms of IT stability, the latter option is best. With restricted rights, users won’t consume as much computing and networking resources. Therefore, IT infrastructures are typically more stable when using POLP.
Here are some tips on how to implement POLP in your business’s cybersecurity plan:
- Create multiple levels of account privileges.
- Use the lowest level of account privileges as the default for all new accounts.
- Give each user a unique account so that you can identify their activities.
- Conduct regular audits of accounts to find and fix vulnerabilities.
In Conclusion
You don’t have to give all users unlimited rights to all of your business’s resources. Rather, you can use POLP. POLP is a cybersecurity concept that involves the use of limited rights for resources. It specifically states that users should be given the bare minimum rights when requesting resources. By including POLP in your business’s cybersecurity plan, you can rest assured knowing that your business will be better protected against cyber attacks and breaches.
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