Principle of Least Privilege
A foundational principle in information security stating that every subject in a system should be granted only the minimum permissions necessary to perform its designated tasks. The principle was formally articulated by Jerome Saltzer and Michael Schroeder in 1975.
Core Facts
The Principle of Least Privilege holds that any principal should only be granted the minimum permissions necessary to complete its task.
The Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP) was formally proposed by Jerome Saltzer in 1975, requiring that each component in a system be granted only the minimum set of permissions necessary to complete its task.
The Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP) originates from the field of computer security in the 1970s and was proposed by Jerome Saltzer at MIT.
Timeline (last 90 days)
A tiered permission system is often called the agent version of the principle of least privilege in the security field; traditional systems assign each user or service just enough permissions, and the agent scenario requires further subdividing 'read' and 'write'.
The principle of least privilege requires that a system or account be granted only the minimum access scope necessary to complete the current task; in connector and Bot configuration scenarios, even if a certain type of connector is selected, it does not mean automatically obtaining read and write permissions for all mailboxes, calendars, and folders under that account.
LLM Agent behavior is gradually generated by the model at runtime based on context, the risk of the same permission differs drastically across different contexts, and the combinatorial behavior space far exceeds any static enumeration capability.
The minimum context principle derives from the principle of least privilege in security engineering, and holds that the information sent to an external system should be exactly enough to answer the current question.
When an Agent can autonomously open accounts and obtain credentials, implementing the Principle of Least Privilege becomes significantly more difficult.
Isolating the management network of refrigeration equipment from office and point-of-sale networks, restricting the source IPs that can access device control interfaces, and applying the principle of least privilege to remote management accounts, disabling or changing default passwords, and enforcing multi-factor authentication are feasible protective measures.
For CLI tools, the principle of least privilege means that a system-level service should not be registered by default, or at least that capabilities such as persistent residency, auto-start, and auto-update should be set as explicit opt-in choices.
工具权限应在模型之外的服务层强制执行，系统提示词是指引而非安全边界
Organizations including Anthropic and OpenAI have begun discussing the application of the principle of least privilege in agent scenarios in their Agent framework documentation.
The success rate of relying on large language model judgment to reject malicious prompt injections is unstable, and scope restrictions serve as a fallback mechanism when model judgment fails.
40 more timeline events
All Facts (20)
The Principle of Least Privilege holds that any principal should only be granted the minimum permissions necessary to complete its task.
90%VerifiedThe Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP) was formally proposed by Jerome Saltzer in 1975, requiring that each component in a system be granted only the minimum set of permissions necessary to complete its task.
90%VerifiedThe Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP) originates from the field of computer security in the 1970s and was proposed by Jerome Saltzer at MIT.
80%VerifiedThe principle of least privilege was proposed by Jerome Saltzer in 1975.
80%VerifiedAI Agent具备'规划-执行-反馈'的完整闭环能力，能自主拆解复杂任务、调用外部工具、持续迭代直到任务完成
80%VerifiedThe Principle of Least Privilege is a foundational principle in information security, requiring that system components possess only the minimum permissions necessary to complete the current task.
80%VerifiedThe Principle of Least Privilege (POLP) requires that any principal possess, at any moment, only the minimum set of permissions necessary to complete the current task.
75%VerifiedEvery expansion of AI capabilities is accompanied by an enlargement of the attack surface, which is essentially a trade-off between convenience and security.
75%VerifiedMulti-agent systems exhibit non-stationarity, as the optimal policy for each agent depends on the behavior of the other agents.
75%VerifiedThe research community has proposed solutions such as the "principle of least privilege," Human-in-the-Loop approval mechanisms, and sandboxed isolated execution environments to mitigate AI Agent security risks.
75%VerifiedSecurity control solutions for AI agents include the principle of least privilege, capability tokens (temporary authorization with time and scope restrictions), and tiered approval mechanisms.
70%VerifiedThe principle of least privilege is considered one of the core ideas in agent security, meaning an agent should only be granted the minimum permissions necessary to complete its task.
65%VerifiedThe Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP) is a foundational tenet of information security spanning decades, stipulating that any system component should only be granted the minimum permissions necessary to complete its current task.
65%VerifiedApplying the principle of least privilege to AI agents means that agents should not have network access by default, and should only temporarily gain it when the user explicitly authorizes a specific request.
65%VerifiedWithout human guidance, even with strongly configured system prompts, AI agent behavior tends toward two extremes: rapid polarization or polite consensus loops.
65%VerifiedWhen using AI Agents, the principle of least privilege should be followed, avoiding granting sensitive permissions such as email, files, and servers from the outset, to guard against risks such as prompt injection attacks.
65%VerifiedThe principle of least privilege originates from the classic 1975 paper on system security design by Saltzer and Schroeder, and is one of the core pillars of zero-trust architecture.
65%VerifiedThe Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP) specifies that any program or component is granted only the minimum permissions necessary to complete its task, in order to reduce the blast radius.
65%Unverified工作区的边界划定实践的是「最小权限原则」（Principle of Least Privilege），只给AI访问完成当前任务所必需的最小资源范围
90%UnverifiedCloud Code的权限配置设计体现了安全工程中的「最小权限原则」（Principle of Least Privilege），只授予完成任务所必需的最小权限集合
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