3.2.3. Access Control (IAM Best Practices)
š” First Principle: Access control, powered by AWS IAM and the Principle of Least Privilege, fundamentally limits who can perform what actions on which resources, ensuring secure and auditable management of your AWS environment.
Access control is a core security concept that determines who (users, applications, services) can access specific AWS resources and what actions they are allowed to perform.
Key Concepts of Access Control with AWS IAM:
- AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM): A web service that helps you securely control access to AWS resources. The primary AWS service for managing access control.
- IAM Users: Individual identities for people or applications.
- IAM Groups: Collections of IAM users to simplify permission management.
- IAM Roles: Secure IAM identities that grant temporary permissions to AWS services (e.g., an EC2 instance accessing S3) or users.
- IAM Policies: JSON documents that define specific permissions. Attached to users, groups, or roles.
- Principle of Least Privilege: A core security practice. Granting only the minimum permissions necessary for an IAM identity to perform its intended function, and nothing more.
- Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Adds an essential security layer beyond passwords. Requires users to provide two or more verification factors to gain access. Always enable for the root account and administrative IAM users. Best Practice: Lock away your root user credentials and never use them for daily tasks. Use IAM users and roles instead.
Scenario: A company needs to grant a new administrator access to its AWS account. This administrator should be able to manage all AWS resources, but their login process should be highly secure. Additionally, an application running on an EC2 instance needs to access S3 buckets.
Reflection Question: How do access control concepts, specifically using IAM (users, roles, policies) and applying the Principle of Least Privilege and MFA, fundamentally ensure secure and auditable management of your AWS environment?