AWS Security Blog

Category: AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)

New Tabbed Organization of Your Resources in the IAM Console

Today, AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) enhanced the IAM console user interface to make it easier to view details about your users, groups, roles, and policies (“IAM entities”). The detail pages for these IAM entities now are organized with tabs for easier browsing so that you can quickly switch between them with minimal scrolling. […]

Verify Resource-Based Permissions Using the IAM Policy Simulator

Today, AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) made it easier to help you verify your permissions by adding support for resource-based policies in the IAM policy simulator. This extends the capabilities of the IAM policy simulator console and APIs to help you understand, test, and validate how your resource-based policies and IAM policies work together […]

How to Receive Notifications When Your AWS Account’s Root Access Keys Are Used

AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) best practices recommend using IAM users or roles to access your AWS resources, instead of using your root credentials. If you follow this best practice, though, how can you monitor for root activity and take action if such activity occurs? AWS CloudTrail and Amazon CloudWatch provide the solution. In […]

How to Delegate Management of Multi-Factor Authentication to AWS IAM Users

Note from September 20, 2017: Based on customer feedback, we have moved the process outlined in this post to the official AWS documentation. AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) has a list of best practices that you are encouraged to use. One of those best practices is to enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) for your AWS root […]

How to Implement Federated API and CLI Access Using SAML 2.0 and AD FS

Feb 21 2023: This post is out of date. AWS now recommends using IAM Identity Center for federated identities accessing AWS by the CLI. Please see this post for more info: AWS CLI v2 Preview Now Supports AWS Single Sign-On Important note from July 18, 2019: The original version of this blog uses Python2.x scripts. […]

Test Your Roles’ Access Policies Using the AWS Identity and Access Management Policy Simulator

You can now use the AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) policy simulator to test and validate your roles’ access control policies. The policy simulator is a tool to help you author and validate the policies that set permissions on your AWS resources. This tool provides a “playground” where you can iteratively author least privilege […]

Register for and Attend This May 22 Webinar: Getting Started with AWS Identity and Access Management

As part of the AWS Webinar Series, AWS will present Getting Started with AWS Identity and Access Management on Friday, May 22. This webinar will start at 10:30 A.M. and end at 11:30 A.M. Pacific Time (UTC-7). AWS Security Solutions Architect Jonathan Desrocher will introduce the fundamental concepts of AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) […]