How to Implement the Principle of Least Privilege in your Corporation

According to a report recently published by Kaspersky, the number of users who have experienced some type of cyberattack in the first half of 2020 increased by 20,000%.

Also, the company BBOViz points out that Brazil is the second country that suffers the most threats from ransomware in the world, just behind India.

Alarming statistics show that protecting a corporation’s confidential data goes beyond mandatory legislation, as data leaks can generate financial and reputational losses as great as penalties for breaching data protection laws.

There are several reports from large companies that have been affected by some type of malware, significantly impacting their business goals. Braskem, for example, was affected by ransomware that had a major impact on its financial health, reducing its revenue by about 45%.

Another recent case occurred in a Chilean public bank, which suffered a ransomware attack that forced them to keep all their branches closed for a day and part of the branches for two days, strongly impacting their reputation – both in terms of image and finances.

Even though there are many reports of cyberattacks around the world, there have never been so many solutions to protect a corporation from them, such as the implementation of the principle of least privilege.

What is the principle of least privilege?

The principle of least privilege is one of the bases for information security. Its main goal is to grant users access to environments that are required for them to perform their tasks. In other words, with the principle of least privilege, users do not access environments they do not require, avoiding internal threats, data leaks, and hacker infiltration in critical environments of a company.

Risks of not using the principle of least privilege

By allowing users to have privileged access to environments that are not required, several security holes are opened in a company, such as the release of Windows administrator privileges for employees, which allows them to install any malicious software, with or without malicious intent, or for a hacker to break into a machine and install this malicious software, increasing business risks and the attack surface.

In addition, allowing users to have excessive privilege in cloud environments also leaves the company’s data vulnerable to attacks and internal threats.

How to implement the principle of least privilege 

Through the senhasegura solution, you have several security locks that ensure users access only the environments required by them. Besides monitoring the way the user is performing privileged access, the senhasegura solution registers, records, and notifies those responsible for information security about any malicious activity within the privileged session.

Through this simple practice, they significantly minimize the chances of a cybercriminal accessing sensitive company data and extracting information.

Request a free demo of the senhasegura solution and learn how the principle of least privilege will change your company’s cybersecurity situation.