Privileges granted to an account or role through the security mechanism of an operating system, database manager or other system.
Various systems, including database management systems, must be able to provide security that prevents unauthorised access or modification of data. Security mechanisms grant permissions to users or roles (groupings of users) that allow or restrict sessions with those credentials from doing certain actions.
Allowable actions that may be controlled by the security system include insert or read permissions on tables, permissions to alter the structure of the database, execute stored procedures, or carry out certain administrative tasks.
'Permissions' typically refers to the set of allowable actions that a given login or role may perform based on the access configured for that role in the systems security manager.
