--- title: Why The Four Eyes principle is critical for access description: An exploration of the four-eyes principle - requiring two or more people to approve a sensitive action - and its application to infrastructure access control.... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/why-the-four-eyes-principle-is-critical-for-access-5m2awrrjo twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Why The Four Eyes principle is critical for access | daily.dev og:description: An exploration of the four-eyes principle - requiring two or more people to approve a sensitive action - and its application to infrastructure access control.... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/why-the-four-eyes-principle-is-critical-for-access-5m2awrrjo og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/5m2awrrjo.png og:image:alt: Why The Four Eyes principle is critical for access og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Why The Four Eyes principle is critical for access **[Teleport](https://daily.dev/sources/teleport)** · 7 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary An exploration of the four-eyes principle - requiring two or more people to approve a sensitive action - and its application to infrastructure access control. The piece walks through a scenario where a contractor's stolen credentials are used to exfiltrate a database, then critiques session recording tools (including Teleport's own BPF-based Enhanced Session Recording) as insufficient on their own since they can be bypassed. It argues that human oversight via moderated, multi-party sessions is needed, referencing Square's sudo_pair tool for SSH, and introduces Teleport's moderated sessions feature (Teleport 9 enterprise) which requires additional users (e.g., senior developers or auditors) to join before a Kubernetes or SSH session can start. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What is the four eyes principle in access control? The four eyes principle requires that a sensitive activity be approved or observed by at least two people rather than one, reducing the risk of fraud, mistakes, or malicious action by a single individual. It originated in routine business processes like wire transfer approvals and high-security procedures like nuclear missile launches, and is now applied to infrastructure access, requiring a second person to join or approve a session before it can start. _daily.dev surfaces practical write-ups like this for teams designing access control policies._ ### How do Teleport moderated sessions enforce multi-party approval for SSH and Kubernetes access? Teleport moderated sessions, a Teleport 9 enterprise feature, let administrators define a require_session_join rule in a role specifying how many additional users with certain roles (like secops or audit) must join before a session can begin. Sessions can be started with a wrapper command such as tsh kube exec --invite=bob@example.com,eve@foo.net --reason="..." to notify invited approvers and provide context. _Teams evaluating session-moderation tooling for production access can track these approaches on daily.dev._ ### Why isn't session recording alone enough to prevent misuse of privileged access? Session recording can be bypassed through obfuscation, disabling terminal commands, or uploading a shell script to perform actions outside the recorded shell, so relying on it alone leaves gaps. Even BPF-based enhanced recording, which captures low-level network, disk, and exec activity to defeat command-line obfuscation, still depends on humans to tune SIEM alerts and catch genuinely suspicious behavior that automated systems miss. _Engineers weighing audit tooling against human oversight can follow this debate on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Why Even the Best Edge Security Still Misses High-Risk Sessions](https://daily.dev/posts/why-even-the-best-edge-security-still-misses-high-risk-sessions-qtib6y468) · BleepingComputer · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Medium](https://daily.dev/posts/medium-xzin0fxka) · Medium · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Schneier on Security](https://daily.dev/posts/schneier-on-security-teng0npyg) · Schneier on Security · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [No single pane of glass: Anatomy of an Azure permission takeover](https://daily.dev/posts/no-single-pane-of-glass-anatomy-of-an-azure-permission-takeover-q7x1g2hf6) · Sysdig Blog · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#kubernetes](https://daily.dev/tags/kubernetes), [#ssh](https://daily.dev/tags/ssh) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/why-the-four-eyes-principle-is-critical-for-access-5m2awrrjo) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Why The Four Eyes principle is critical for access","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-the-four-eyes-principle-is-critical-for-access-5m2awrrjo","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-the-four-eyes-principle-is-critical-for-access-5m2awrrjo"},"datePublished":"2026-08-23T12:19:10.863Z","dateModified":"2026-08-23T12:35:41.371Z","description":"An exploration of the four-eyes principle - requiring two or more people to approve a sensitive action - and its application to infrastructure access control....","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--2-1xRawN--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2011","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--2-1xRawN--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2011","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Teleport","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Teleport","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--Dw-Bbw6O--/c_limit,w_256/f_auto,q_auto/v1787487494/logos/teleport?_a=BAMAMicg0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/teleport"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-the-four-eyes-principle-is-critical-for-access-5m2awrrjo","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"kubernetes,ssh","timeRequired":"PT7M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Teleport","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/teleport"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Why The Four Eyes principle is critical for access"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-the-four-eyes-principle-is-critical-for-access-5m2awrrjo#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"What is the four eyes principle in access control?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"The four eyes principle requires that a sensitive activity be approved or observed by at least two people rather than one, reducing the risk of fraud, mistakes, or malicious action by a single individual. 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