AWS Security Blog
Tag: IAM
The IAM Console Now Helps Prevent You from Accidentally Deleting In-Use Resources
Deleting unused resources can help to improve the security of your AWS account and make your account easier to manage. However, if you have ever been unsure of whether an AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) user or role was being used actively, you probably erred on the side of caution and kept it. Starting […]
Adhere to IAM Best Practices in 2016
As another new year begins, we encourage you to review our recommended AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) best practices. Following these best practices can help you maintain the security of your AWS resources. You can learn more by watching the IAM Best Practices to Live By presentation that Anders Samuelsson gave at AWS re:Invent […]
How to Set Up SSO to the AWS Management Console for Multiple Accounts by Using AD FS and SAML 2.0
AWS supports Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) 2.0, an open standard for identity federation used by many identity providers (IdPs). SAML enables federated single sign-on (SSO), which enables your users to sign in to the AWS Management Console or to make programmatic calls to AWS APIs by using assertions from a SAML-compliant IdP. Many of […]
AWS Security Token Service (STS) Is Now Active by Default in All AWS Regions
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 […]
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 […]
AWS IAM Sessions at re:Invent 2015
As I said last week, the breakout sessions for the Security & Compliance track have been announced and are shown in the re:Invent 2015 session catalog. If you are going to re:Invent 2015, you can add these sessions to your schedule now. Today, I will highlight the AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) sessions that […]
Introducing New APIs to Help Test Your Access Control Policies
AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) has added two new APIs that enable you to automate validation and auditing of permissions for your IAM users, groups, and roles. Using these two APIs, you can call the IAM policy simulator using the AWS CLI or any of the AWS SDKs. Use the new iam:SimulatePrincipalPolicy API to […]
Organize Your Permissions by Using Separate Managed Policies
This year we released managed policies to enable you to create a set of stand-alone policies that you can attach to multiple IAM entities (users, groups, and roles) in your AWS account. Since that release, we have heard from many of you that you’d prefer to mix and match policies instead of just using one universal […]
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 […]
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 […]