principle of least privilege

principle of least privilege: The security guideline that a user should have the minimum privileges necessary to perform a specific task. This helps to ensure that, if a user is compromised, the impact is minimized by the limited privileges held by that user. In practice, a user runs within the security context of a normal user. When a task requires additional privileges, the user can use a tool such as Run as to start a specific process with those additional privileges or to log on as a user with the necessary privileges.