AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)
A web service that helps you securely control access to AWS services and resources for your users.
Description
AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) is a key service that enables you to manage access to AWS resources securely. With IAM, you can create and manage AWS users, groups, and roles, and define their permissions to allow or deny access to specific resources. IAM is crucial for maintaining security and compliance in the AWS cloud, as it allows organizations to implement least privilege access, ensuring that users and services have only the permissions they need to perform their tasks. IAM also supports multifactor authentication (MFA), providing an additional layer of security. Notably, IAM integrates with AWS services seamlessly, allowing you to enforce security policies across your entire AWS environment. By using IAM, organizations can also streamline user management, facilitating the onboarding and offboarding of employees while maintaining robust security protocols. Moreover, IAM provides detailed access logs and reports, which help in monitoring and auditing access to AWS resources, further enhancing the security posture of the organization.
Examples
- Creating IAM roles for EC2 instances to allow them to interact with S3 buckets without hardcoding credentials.
- Using IAM policies to restrict access to certain AWS services, such as preventing users from deleting resources in the production environment.
Additional Information
- IAM supports both AWS Management Console access and programmatic access through the AWS CLI and SDKs.
- IAM is free to use; you only pay for the AWS resources that users access.