What is Azure RBAC (Role-Based Access Control)?

Azure RBAC is the authorization system for controlling who has access to Azure resources, what they can do with those resources, and what areas they have access to. Key concepts: Security Principal: user, group, service principal, or managed identity requesting access. Role Definition: a collection of permissions. Built-in roles: Owner (full access including granting access), Contributor (full access except granting access), Reader (read only). Scope: the set of resources the access applies to — management group, subscription, resource group, or resource. Role Assignment: attaches a role definition to a security principal at a scope. Assignments are inherited — a Contributor at subscription level has Contributor access to all resource groups and resources within. Azure RBAC is deny-by-default — access must be explicitly granted.