unprivileged

Unprivileged is an adjective describing someone or something that lacks special rights, status, or access granted to a privileged group. In computing, an unprivileged user or process operates with restricted permissions and minimal access to system resources.

In practice, unprivileged accounts are used to limit what a program can do on a system. Running services under unprivileged users, dropping privileges after authentication, and isolating code in sandboxes or containers are common security measures to reduce the potential impact of vulnerabilities.

The concept is closely tied to the security principle of least privilege: each component should have only the minimum rights necessary to perform its function. Privilege escalation attacks illustrate why unprivileged design matters; if a process with elevated rights is compromised, an attacker can gain broader access.

In sociology and policy discussions, "unprivileged" describes individuals or groups who lack access to economic, educational, or social resources compared with more advantaged groups. It is often used in analyses of inequality and access to services, though terms like underprivileged or disadvantaged are also common.

In technology contexts, related terms include privileged, non-privileged, sandboxing, capabilities, and setuid. Language preferences vary by domain, with some contexts using "unprivileged" and others "non-privileged" or "least-privilege" to describe restricted permissions.