super user account

A privileged credential object that grants its holder unrestricted or near-unrestricted access to a system, application, or administrative domain — bypassing the normal permission boundaries that apply to standard users. Such accounts are used by administrators who have unrestricted access to files, directories, and resources, and NIST characterizes the holder as having authority to "perform security-relevant functions that ordinary users are not authorized to perform." In practice, the field treats "super user account" as a member of the broader class of privileged accounts subject to Privileged Access Management (PAM) controls — system administrators use privileged "super user" accounts to manage information technology, and the principle of least privilege recommends that most users and applications run under an ordinary account, as a superuser account is capable of making unrestricted, potentially adverse, system-wide changes. Compliance and governance frameworks require these accounts to receive heightened controls: for super user accounts and administrative access roles, MFA must be implemented and additional protections considered, including separate user accounts to isolate

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