AWS IAM Access Analyzer for Enhanced Resource Protection

Overview

AWS recently launched two new features to improve the AWS IAM Access Analyzer functionalities by analyzing unused permissions that are granted but not in use and validating the newly authored policies, thereby limiting permissions. In this blog, we are going to explore these two features.

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Introduction

AWS IAM Access Analyzer examines the resource-based policies in your AWS environment and uses logic-based reasoning to identify resources shared with external principals. With the aid of AWS IAM Access Analyzer, you can determine which accounts and organizational resources—like Amazon S3 buckets or AWS IAM roles—are shared with a third party.

This enables you to detect unauthorized access to your data and resources, which poses a security concern. AWS IAM Access Analyzer produces a finding for every instance of a resource shared outside of your account. Information regarding the access and the external principal who gave it is included in the findings.

To ascertain if the access was unintentional and a security concern or if it was intended and safe, you can review the findings. Before installing resource permissions, you can utilize the results of the AWS IAM Access Analyzer to preview how your policy affects public and cross-account access to your resource, in addition to assisting you in identifying resources shared with an external entity. AWS introduced two new features of AWS IAM Access Analyzer during AWS’s recent re-Invent.

Unused Access Analyzer
Custom Policy Checks

Unused Access Analyzer

A new analyzer that keeps an eye on users and roles in order to find permissions that are granted but not really utilized. A dashboard view that enables central security teams to identify which accounts stand to gain the most from an examination of underused roles, permissions, and AWS IAM users can be utilized.

With this new feature, it is possible to build an analyzer that searches for access rights that are either excessively permissive or no longer needed. This comprises unused AWS IAM roles, unused AWS IAM users’ access keys, unused AWS IAM users’ passwords, and unused services and actions for unused AWS IAM users and roles. Once an organization-wide or account-specific analyzer has produced its findings, you can take appropriate action by removing/deleting unnecessary rights.

An analyzer, a resource that regularly assesses your accounts or AWS organization for either external access or unused access, is created when you enable AWS IAM Access Analyzer. Access findings for your AWS resources, AWS IAM users, and roles are produced by an analyzer. For no additional cost, an external access analyzer generates cross-account and public access findings for resources. A premium feature that makes it easier to examine unused access and point you in the direction of least privilege is called an unused access analyzer. You pay each month for an AWS IAM role or AWS IAM user analysis while using this feature.

Custom Policy Checks

Developers are the ones who create the applications that need permissions, even while security teams are in charge of the organization’s overall security posture. Organizations strive to find safe ways to provide developers the authority to design AWS IAM policies so that developers may work quickly without sacrificing security. Several AWS clients carry out manual AWS IAM policy evaluations prior to releasing developer-authored policies into operational settings.

Customers adhere to this procedure in an effort to stop unauthorized or excessive permits from entering the production process. These assessments can be thorough and time-consuming, depending on the quantity and complexity of the regulations that need to be examined. As a result, there will likely be a delay in the deployment of applications and services and a halt in development. Confirmation that recently created policies don’t give rise to any unexpected or extra permissions. By incorporating automated policy reviews into your CI/CD pipelines and bespoke policy tools, you can accelerate the process of bringing AWS apps from development to production and exert more control over your AWS IAM policies.

A new feature of AWS IAM Access Analyzer, custom policy checks, assists security teams in precisely and proactively identifying important rights within their rules. If a policy has changed and is now more permissive than it was previously, you may also find out with custom policy checks. Automated reasoning, a type of static analysis, is used in custom policy checks to offer a higher degree of cloud security assurance.

In order to perform checks against policies without requiring the deployment of the policies, custom policy checks can be integrated into a continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) pipeline. Furthermore, developers may quickly ascertain whether the policies they are writing comply with your company’s security standards by running custom policy checks from their local development environments.

Conclusion

In order to give the appropriate fine-grained permissions as your needs change, achieving the least privilege is an ongoing process. AWS IAM Access Analyzer helps you set, check, and fine-tune permissions so that you can follow the principle of least privilege. AWS IAM Access Analyzer analyzes external access and verifies that your policies adhere to the corporate security criteria you’ve set using proven security.

Drop a query if you have any questions regarding AWS IAM Access Analyzer and we will get back to you quickly.

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FAQs

1. How do I work toward least privilege permissions?

ANS: – As you begin to grant permissions, you might begin by granting more rights as you learn and do more. AWS advises that as your use cases develop, you hone permissions to the point where you only provide the necessary ones, ultimately aiming for least-privilege rights. AWS offers resources to assist you in fine-tuning your permissions. AWS managed policies, which are made and maintained by AWS and contain permissions for typical use scenarios, are a good place to start. Define particular rights in customer controlled policies as you continue to optimize your permissions. Use AWS Identity and Access Management (AWS IAM) Access Analyzer, examine AWS CloudTrail logs, and look up the last access information to assist you in figuring out what precise permissions you need. To test and troubleshoot policies, you can also use the AWS IAM policy simulator.

2. What are the least-privilege permissions?

ANS: – Give only the rights necessary to complete a task when you specify permissions using AWS IAM policies. The term “granting least privilege” refers to this practice. Least-privilege permissions can be applied in AWS IAM by specifying the actions that are permissible on particular resources under particular circumstances.

3. How does the AWS IAM access analyzer work?

ANS: – AWS IAM Access Analyzer reviews last accessed information for all roles, user access keys, and user passwords in your AWS organization and accounts to help you identify unused access.