7.2.5 Application and system accounts least privilege

Every application and system account and its related access privileges must be assigned and managed so that: privileges are the least needed for the system or application to operate; and access is limited to those systems, processes or applications that have a specific need for the account. The guidance explains that a compromised service account gives an attacker whatever the account can reach, and suggests entities may consider a baseline that keeps such accounts out of privileged groups such as domain or local administrators or root, restricts the machines and hours they can be used, and removes VPN or remote access. Objective under the customized approach: the rights given to system and application accounts are confined to what that application or system needs to operate. Future-dated: treated as a best practice up to 31 March 2025 and mandatory since then.

Source: PCI DSS v4.0.1, 7.2.5. The statement above is our statement of the clause, read from the published text and cited so you can check it against the official text, not the instrument verbatim. Open PCI DSS v4.0.1 in the compliance library.

Version 4.0.1 is the active version; 4.0 has been retired. Appendix A1 applies only to multi-tenant service providers, A2 only to card-present POS POI terminals that still use SSL or early TLS, and A3 only when a payment brand or acquirer requires it. Which requirements apply to you follows your validation type.