Glossary · Information security
Segregation of Duties
The control of splitting a sensitive task across more than one person so that no single individual can complete it alone.
Segregation of duties prevents fraud and error by ensuring that critical steps in a process require more than one person. For example, the person who requests a payment should not also be the one who approves it.
It is a core internal control, especially in finance and IT administration, and it reduces the risk that a single compromised or malicious actor can cause significant harm.