need to know
nounverified· unreviewed·updated Aug 30, 2026
An administrative action officially declaring a particular individual requires access to specified sensitive or classified information in order to perform their assigned duties.
MWENERC CIP-003-6 (Security Management Controls) v6
Senses
NISTIR 7298: Glossary of Key Information Security Terms, Revision 2
A method of isolating information resources based on a user’s need to have access to that resource in order to perform their job but no more. The terms ‘need-to know” and “least privilege” express the same idea. Need-to-know is generally applied to people, while least privilege is generally applied to processes.
NIST SP 800-171r3attested usage pack match
No definition is given in NIST SP 800-171r3. The term is attested in use at 1 citation in that document; a definition is pending curation.
Classifications
Entity Type
Requirement0%rule-basedmulti_axis_classifier_low_confidence.v1
?unassignedlast reviewed —
Sensitivity
Regulated90%llm-generatedllm:claude-haiku-4-5
?unassignedlast reviewed —
Information Class
Cui75%llm-generatedllm:claude-haiku-4-5
?unassignedlast reviewed —
Variants
- synonym
- need-to-know
- alternatephrasing
- Need-To-Know
- plural
- need to knowsNeed-To-Knows
- possessive
- need to know'sNeed-To-Know's
- pluralpossessive
- need to knows'Need-To-Knows'