crown jewels
jargonsecuritygovernance & risk
The small set of assets whose compromise would actually hurt: the data, keys, and systems the business cannot lose.
Security budgets are finite, so the crown-jewels exercise forces the uncomfortable ranking: which systems justify the strongest controls. The related phrase 'keys to the kingdom' names the credentials - domain admin, root CA, break-glass accounts - that unlock all of it at once.
Also known as: keys to the kingdom