Non-privileged accounts or roles must be used when accessing non-security functions.

This requirement limits exposure when operating from within privileged accounts or roles. The inclusion of roles addresses situations where organizations implement access control policies such as role-based access control and where a change of role provides the same degree of assurance in the change of access authorizations for the user and all processes acting on behalf of the user as would be provided by a change between a privileged and non-privileged account.

A user with a privileged account can perform more tasks and access more information than a person with a non-privileged account. Tasks (including unauthorized tasks orchestrated by attackers) performed when using the privileged account can have a greater impact on the system. System administrators and users with privileged accounts must be trained not to use their privileged accounts for everyday tasks, such as browsing the internet or connecting unnecessarily to other systems or services.

Privileged account activity should be inspected on a regular basis to confirm that these accounts are not used in situation where they are not warranted. Please use the form below to record a log of privileged account activity inspection.