Least Privilege

Least privilege is a simple rule. Every person gets only the screens and buttons their job needs, and nothing more. The delivery driver sees today's addresses. The bookkeeper sees the invoices. Neither one can open the other's screen. Said out loud it sounds harsh. In daily use it is the quietest way to keep a business out of trouble.

Think about a cashier who can void a sale. Voiding is a normal part of the day. A customer changes their mind, an item scans twice, a price is wrong. The button has to exist. The real questions are who else has it and whether anyone ever looks. Linkysoft has walked into shops where every member of staff could void, nobody could say who pressed the button, and the gap only showed up at stocktake. Least privilege answers both halves. Give the button to the two people who need it, and stamp every void with a name.

The second reason is a stolen account rather than stolen cash. A password gets guessed, copied off a phone, or typed into a fake login page. The thief then walks in as that person. What happens next depends completely on what that account was allowed to touch. A stock clerk with three screens costs you three screens. A shared manager login that everyone uses costs you the whole business in one step.

The mistake we see most often is not being generous on the first day. It is never taking anything back. Someone covers for a colleague on leave, gets extra access for two weeks, and still has it four years later. Access only ever grows. A custom web application should show on one screen everything a single person can reach, and let you remove a piece of it in one click.

Storek comes with roles already drawn around real shop jobs, so a new cashier starts with the right screens instead of all of them. When Linkysoft builds a system from nothing, we ask one uncomfortable question early. If this account were stolen tonight, what could a stranger do with it by morning? The answer usually shortens somebody's permission list before any code is written. Ask your supplier the same question. If they cannot answer it in a minute, they do not know either.