Ann works at a small company and she is concerned that there is no oversight in the finance department; specifically, that Joe writes, signs and distributes paychecks, as well as other expenditures. W

Mandatory vacations are a detective control that can reveal fraud by forcing someone else to perform a role temporarily, but they do not structurally prevent one person from controlling the entire paycheck process.

Time of day restrictions limit when a user can log in and are unrelated to the problem of a single person controlling an entire financial workflow.

Least privilege restricts access to only what is needed for a job, but it does not address the structural problem of one individual owning all phases of a sensitive financial transaction.

Separation of duties is a security principle that divides a critical task among multiple individuals so that no single person can complete a fraud-enabling process alone. In this case, the tasks of writing, approving, and distributing paychecks should be assigned to different employees, creating checks and balances that deter and detect financial misconduct.