Identifying and resolving least privilege violations in software architectures

Supporting a security principle, such as least privilege, in a software architecture is difficult. Systematic rules are lacking, no guidance explains how to apply the principle in practice. As a result, security principles are often neglected. This lowers the overall security level of the software system and the cost of fixing such problems later on in the develop-ment cycle is high. We propose an improvement in supporting least privi-lege in software architectures. We have identified architec-tural transformations that reduce violations to the principle of least privilege. These transformations have been imple-mented. We have applied the solution on a case study.