Category: AWS Security Token Service

September 20, 2024: Updated with information on the v1.0 and v2.0 access tokens in the Microsoft identity platform and changes in the Audience value when v2.0 access tokens are used. Removed a note about obtaining access tokens from managed identities. Use of long-term access keys for authentication between cloud resources increases the risk of key […]

This blog post provides recommendations that you can use to help improve resiliency in the unlikely event of disrupted availability of the global (now legacy) AWS Security Token Service (AWS STS) endpoint. Although the global (legacy) AWS STS endpoint https://sts.amazonaws.com is highly available, it’s hosted in a single AWS Region—US East (N. Virginia)—and like other […]

April 25, 2023: We’ve updated this blog post to include more security learning resources. Tokenization of sensitive data elements is a hot topic, but you may not know what to tokenize, or even how to determine if tokenization is right for your organization’s business needs. Industries subject to financial, data security, regulatory, or privacy compliance […]

When accessing AWS resources in an organization, we recommend that you have a standard and repeatable authentication method for purposes of security, auditability, compliance, and the capability to support role and account separation. As part of my AWS Professional Services engagements, I have helped AWS customers establish such an authentication mechanism via federated access to […]

My previous blog post on November 11, 2015, reported that we were preparing to activate AWS Security Token Service (STS) by default in all AWS regions. As of today, AWS STS is active by default in all AWS regions, for all customers. This means that your applications and services can immediately take advantage of reduced […]

By the end of November 2015, AWS Security Token Service (STS) will be active by default in all AWS regions, which means that your applications and services can call AWS STS in a region geographically closer to you. This change will optimize latencies and improve application performance. Additionally, the multiregional resiliency provided by AWS STS […]

October 15, 2021:We updated a link in this blog post. The newly released whitepaper, Single Sign-On: Integrating AWS, OpenLDAP, and Shibboleth, will help you integrate your existing LDAP-based user directory with AWS. When you integrate your existing directory with AWS, your users can access AWS by using their existing credentials. This means that your users […]

AWS Security Token Service (STS), which enables your applications to request temporary security credentials, is now available in every AWS region. Previously, STS had only a single endpoint (https://sts.amazonaws.com), but now, there is an endpoint in every AWS region. By bringing STS to a region geographically closer to you, your applications and services can call […]