AWS Security Blog
Tag: AWS IAM
Simplified developer access to AWS with ‘aws login’
Getting credentials for local development with AWS is now simpler and more secure. A new AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) command, aws login, lets you start building immediately after signing up for AWS without creating and managing long-term access keys. You use the same sign-in method you already use for the AWS Management Console. […]
Unlock new possibilities: AWS Organizations service control policy now supports full IAM language
Amazon Web Service (AWS) recently announced that AWS Organizations now offers full AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) policy language support for service control policies (SCPs). With this feature, you can use conditions, individual resource Amazon Resource Names (ARNs), and the NotAction element with Allow statements. Additionally, you can now use wildcards at the beginning or middle of […]
Beyond IAM access keys: Modern authentication approaches for AWS
When it comes to AWS authentication, relying on long-term credentials, such as AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) access keys, introduces unnecessary risks; including potential credential exposure, unauthorized sharing, or theft. In this post, I present five common use cases where AWS customers traditionally use IAM access keys and present more secure alternatives that you […]
Implementing just-in-time privileged access to AWS with Microsoft Entra and AWS IAM Identity Center
June 19, 2025: We made a correction to the windows of access that a user could have when using this solution. Controlling access to your privileged and sensitive resources is critical for all AWS customers. Preventing direct human interaction with services and systems through automation is the primary means of accomplishing this. For those infrequent […]
How to import existing AWS Organizations SCPs and RCPs to CloudFormation
Many AWS Organizations customers begin by creating and manually applying service control policies (SCPs) and resource control policies (RCPs) through the AWS Management Console or AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) when they first set up their environments. However, as the organization grows and the number of policies increases, this manual approach can become cumbersome. It can […]
Use AWS service reference information to automate policy management workflows
Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides service reference information in JSON format to help you automate policy management workflows. With the service reference information, you can access available actions across AWS services from machine-readable files. The service reference information helps to address a key customer need: keeping up with the ever-growing list of services and actions […]
Four ways to grant cross-account access in AWS
As your Amazon Web Services (AWS) environment grows, you might develop a need to grant cross-account access to resources. This could be for various reasons, such as enabling centralized operations across multiple AWS accounts, sharing resources across teams or projects within your organization, or integrating with third-party services. However, granting cross-account access requires careful consideration […]
How to implement IAM policy checks with Visual Studio Code and IAM Access Analyzer
In a previous blog post, we introduced the IAM Access Analyzer custom policy check feature, which allows you to validate your policies against custom rules. Now we’re taking a step further and bringing these policy checks directly into your development environment with the AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio Code (VS Code). In this blog post, […]
Customize the scope of IAM Access Analyzer unused access analysis
AWS Identity and Access Management Access Analyzer simplifies inspecting unused access to guide you towards least privilege. You can use unused access findings to identify over-permissive access granted to AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) roles and users in your accounts or organization. From a delegated administrator account for IAM Access Analyzer, you can use the dashboard […]
Secure root user access for member accounts in AWS Organizations
November 17, 2025: The MFA Security Key program, which provided eligible customers with free MFA devices, has been discontinued effective November 6th, 2025. While existing devices will continue to function normally, no new orders for MFA security keys will be accepted after the program closure date. AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) now supports centralized […]









