The Real Risk of Elevated Permissions in Power Automate

TL;DR

Once a flow runs with a service account’s elevated permissions, the flow’s own input validation — not the calling user’s access rights — becomes the only real safety check, so scope that account to exactly what the flow’s actions need rather than broad admin access, and add explicit audit logging for sensitive operations since run history alone may not satisfy compliance.

Original by Marcel Lehmann, on PowerPlatformTip. Read the original

This is our own summary, not a republication or full translation. Both publications are edited by Marcel Lehmann.

Governance takeaway

• Makers: building a flow that runs under a service account’s elevated rights need to validate every input inside the flow itself, since the caller’s own permissions stop mattering the moment the flow takes over.
• Admins/CoE: scope that service account to exactly what the flow’s actions require, not broad admin access, so one validation gap doesn’t turn into a tenant-wide one.
• Security/Compliance: require explicit audit logging on sensitive operations here, since standard run history alone may not hold up as evidence in a compliance review.