AWS Security Blog
Category: AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)
How to Use External ID When Granting Access to Your AWS Resources
When you need to grant access to your AWS resources to a third party, we recommend you do so using an IAM role with external ID. In this post, Josh Bean, a programmer writer on the AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) team, walks you through a scenario to show you how. At times, you […]
A Simple Way to Export Your IAM Settings
Do you analyze, audit, or monitor your AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) settings? If so, you will be happy to hear we’ve simplified the way you can retrieve a snapshot of your IAM settings. Today we’re making it easier for you to build tools to analyze, monitor, and audit your IAM entities (i.e., users, […]
Federated Users Can Now Access the AWS Support Center
Recently, the AWS Support Center moved to the AWS Management Console. In addition to providing a better user experience, it enabled another important feature – federated access. Users in your company can now use their existing credentials to access the AWS Support Center for actions like creating a case, looking at the case history, or […]
Back to School: Understanding the IAM Policy Grammar
Have you ever had to create access policies for users, groups, roles, or resources and wished you could learn more about the policy language? If so, you’ve come to the right place. In this blog, I’ll describe the attributes and structure of the Identity and Access Management (IAM) policy language. I’ll also include examples that […]
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 […]