Least Privilege
Granting only the permissions actually required, so a compromise has a small ceiling.
Least privilege is the principle that any component should hold only the permissions it needs to do its job. Its value is not that it prevents compromise but that it bounds it: the question after any breach is what the compromised credential could reach.
The principle is stated easily and applied poorly, because broad permissions are convenient and the cost of narrowing them is paid up front. A few recurring patterns:
Scope tokens to operations, not to roles. A process that only reads should hold a read-only credential. A process that only posts a comment should not hold one that can write to the repository.
Know which credential is actually in play. A permissions declaration frequently bounds the platform-issued token while some other, separately-minted credential does the real work — so tightening the declaration achieves nothing. See Environment Variable for the related problem of an unexpected credential taking precedence.
Constrain outbound capability, not just inbound. For anything running untrusted input through an agent, the exfiltration path matters more than the permission set. See Prompt Injection and Supply Chain Security.
Wildcards are not a configuration. An allowlist of "anything" in a system that defaults to nothing is a common and understandable shortcut, and it grants exactly what the mechanism existed to restrict.
See also6
Secret Management
Storing, distributing, and rotating credentials without embedding them in code or history.
Systems & Tooling23 connections
Supply Chain Security
Protecting against compromise arriving through the code and tooling a project depends on.
Version Control & Delivery13 connections
Guardrail
A rule constraining what a model may do, enforced by prompt, schema, or surrounding code.
Agents & Language Models14 connections
Same-Origin Policy
The browser rule isolating documents by scheme, host, and port, and the mechanisms for relaxing it.
Web Platform15 connections
Code Signing
Cryptographically attesting who produced a binary, and the operating-system checks built on it.
Systems & Tooling18 connections
Model Context Protocol
An open protocol for exposing tools, data, and prompts to AI applications through a uniform interface.
Agents & Language Models10 connections
Related1
Nearby in the graph rather than deliberately chosen. Looser, sometimes surprising.
Linked from16
- Battle RoyalePlay & Games
A many-player elimination format that uses a shrinking play area to force an ending the players would otherwise avoid.
- Caller ID AuthenticationNetworks & Distribution
Cryptographic attestation of an originating telephone number, and why spoofed calls survive it.
- ChrootSystems & Tooling
Rebasing a process's idea of the filesystem root, the oldest and shallowest form of Unix process isolation.
- Code SigningSystems & Tooling
Cryptographically attesting who produced a binary, and the operating-system checks built on it.
- Confidence TrickMeaning & Society
Fraud that obtains trust first, so the victim hands over the money themselves.
- Domain Name SystemSystems & Tooling
The distributed directory translating names to addresses, and the layer where propagation delays live.
- Environment VariableSystems & Tooling
A named value in a process's environment, inherited by its children — the standard configuration channel.
- eSIMNetworks & Distribution
A SIM soldered into the device and provisioned over the air, with profiles downloaded rather than cards swapped.
- GuardrailAgents & Language Models
A rule constraining what a model may do, enforced by prompt, schema, or surrounding code.
- Linux NamespacesSystems & Tooling
The kernel feature that gives a process its own private view of a global resource — the foundation containers are built from.
- Model Context ProtocolAgents & Language Models
An open protocol for exposing tools, data, and prompts to AI applications through a uniform interface.
- Prompt InjectionAgents & Language Models
Untrusted content that reaches a model's context and is treated as instruction.
- Same-Origin PolicyWeb Platform
The browser rule isolating documents by scheme, host, and port, and the mechanisms for relaxing it.
- Secret ManagementSystems & Tooling
Storing, distributing, and rotating credentials without embedding them in code or history.
- Supply Chain SecurityVersion Control & Delivery
Protecting against compromise arriving through the code and tooling a project depends on.
- Virtual Private NetworkNetworks & Distribution
An encrypted tunnel that presents a remote network as local, and the narrow set of things a commercial one actually hides.