access privilege

A specific permission, right or authorization granted to a system account that determines which system resources, functions and data the account may access or act upon. Access privileges are specified per account or per account type, alongside the account's authorized users and its group and role membership, and are expected to reflect the requirements stated elsewhere in a system's security plan. Under the principle of least privilege they are restricted to the minimum necessary for an account's assigned tasks, and they are reviewed and revoked as part of account management. The phrase is a term of art in access control rather than the loose sum of "access" and "privilege": it names the enumerable unit of authorization that account management specifies.