Preventing Good People from Doing Bad Things: Implementing Least Privilege

Misuse of Privilege Is the New Corporate Landmine

“Organizations continue to struggle with excessive user privilege as it remains the primary attack point for data breaches and unauthorized transactions.”

—Mark Diodati, Gartner, Inc.

In organizations, it is a sad and harsh reality that trusted individuals are getting away with too many things. For example, at HSBC, a systems administrator named Falcini had unfettered root access. And what did he do with those credentials? He stole thousands of customer files and then tried to sell them to banks and tax authorities. This is becoming an increasing trend, with more and more breaches coming to ...