AWS Security Blog
Category: AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)
New in the IAM Console: An At-a-Glance View of Last AWS Sign-In
Have you ever needed to quickly look up the last time one of your users signed in to your AWS account? Or have you been following security best practices and want verify that no one in your organization has been signing in using the AWS root account? If you use AWS CloudTrail, the information is […]
Easier Role Selection for SAML-Based Single Sign-On
At the end of 2013, we introduced single sign-on to the AWS Management Console using the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) 2.0. This enables you to use your organization’s existing identity system to sign in to the console without having to provide AWS credentials. Today we’re happy to announce that, in response to your feedback, […]
Don’t Forget to Enable Access to the Billing Console!
We’ve seen a question appear periodically on the IAM forum about granting IAM users access to the AWS Billing console. The question is this: even after an administrator sets appropriate permissions for an IAM user to access the console, the user can’t get to the console. Why not? Access to the console actually requires two […]
Introducing the Redesigned IAM Console
We are excited to announce the redesigned IAM console, now with a streamlined look and feel that makes it even easier to manage your IAM settings. We’ve made it more convenient to manage large resource lists (for example, hundreds of users, groups, or roles), eliminated tab switching, and optimized the console to offer a better […]
AWS CloudTrail Now Logs AWS Management Console Sign-In Events
We’ve heard from many of you that you want greater visibility into when users sign in to the AWS Management Console. We are excited to announce that AWS CloudTrail now captures console sign-in events whenever an account owner, a federated user, or an IAM user signs into the console. For those of you who aren’t […]
New IAM Features: Enhanced Password Management and Credential Reports
The AWS IAM team recently released new credential lifecycle management features that enable AWS account administrators to define and enforce security best practices for IAM users. We’ve expanded IAM password policies to enable self-service password rotation, on top of existing options to enforce password complexity. Furthermore, you can download reports for better visibility into the […]
Enhanced IAM Capabilities for the AWS Billing Console
In this post, Graham Evans, a developer on the AWS Billing team, describes new security features that expand how you can secure access to billing information in your AWS account. My team—AWS Billing— recently released the new and improved Billing and Cost Management Console. We’re now happy to introduce an improvement to the access and […]
Want Help with Securing Your AWS Account? Here Are Some Resources
Some customers have asked how they should be using AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) to help limit their exposure to problems like those that have recently been in the news. In general, AWS recommends that you enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) for your AWS account and for IAM users who are allowed to perform sensitive […]
Federating Identity Management at Netflix with OneLogin
As one of our most active customers, Netflix has hundreds of administrators who need access to AWS daily. Therefore, by eliminating their need to use AWS credentials via identity federation, they saved time, money, and administrative effort almost immediately. They were able to use SAML and OneLogin, their existing identity management provider, to federate users […]
Granting Permission to Launch EC2 Instances with IAM Roles (PassRole Permission)
When you launch an Amazon EC2 instance, you can associate an AWS IAM role with the instance to give applications or CLI commands that run on the instance permissions that are defined by the role. When a role is associated with an instance, EC2 obtains temporary security credentials for the role you associated with the […]