Securing AWS IAM Permissions

When to Use

• When onboarding new AWS accounts or workloads that require scoped IAM policies
• When IAM Access Analyzer reports overly permissive policies or unused permissions
• When preparing for a compliance audit requiring least privilege evidence (SOC 2, PCI-DSS)
• When migrating from long-lived access keys to short-lived role-based credentials
• When remediating findings from AWS Security Hub related to IAM misconfigurations

Do not use for Azure AD or Google Cloud IAM configurations, application-level authorization logic, or federated identity provider setup (see managing-cloud-identity-with-okta).

Prerequisites

• AWS account with administrative access or IAM:FullAccess permissions
• AWS CLI v2 installed and configured with named profiles
• AWS CloudTrail enabled for at least 90 days of API activity history
• Familiarity with JSON-based IAM policy syntax and ARN resource notation

Workflow

Step 1: Inventory Existing IAM Entities and Policies

Generate a comprehensive inventory of all IAM users, roles, groups, and attached policies using the AWS CLI and IAM credential reports. Identify accounts with console access, programmatic access keys, and their last-used timestamps.

# Generate IAM credential report
aws iam generate-credential-report
aws iam get-credential-report --query 'Content' --output text | base64 -d > iam-report.csv

# List all IAM roles and their attached policies
aws iam list-roles --query 'Roles[*].[RoleName,Arn,CreateDate]' --output table

# Find users with access keys older than 90 days
aws iam list-users --query 'Users[*].UserName' --output text | while read user; do
  aws iam list-access-keys --user-name "$user" \
    --query "AccessKeyMetadata[?CreateDate<='$(date -d '-90 days' +%Y-%m-%d)'].[UserName,AccessKeyId,Status,CreateDate]" \
    --output table
done

Step 2: Enable and Analyze IAM Access Analyzer Findings

Activate IAM Access Analyzer at the organization or account level to identify resources shared externally and generate least-privilege policy recommendations based on CloudTrail activity.

# Create an Access Analyzer for the account
aws accessanalyzer create-analyzer \
  --analyzer-name account-analyzer \
  --type ACCOUNT

# List active findings for external access
aws accessanalyzer list-findings \
  --analyzer-arn arn:aws:access-analyzer:us-east-1:123456789012:analyzer/account-analyzer \
  --filter '{"status": {"eq": ["ACTIVE"]}}'

# Generate a policy based on CloudTrail activity for a specific role
aws accessanalyzer start-policy-generation \
  --policy-generation-details '{
    "principalArn": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/AppRole",
    "cloudTrailDetails": {
      "trailArn": "arn:aws:cloudtrail:us-east-1:123456789012:trail/management-trail",
      "startTime": "2025-01-01T00:00:00Z",
      "endTime": "2025-03-01T00:00:00Z"
    }
  }'

Step 3: Scope Policies to Specific Resources and Conditions

Replace wildcard resource ARNs with specific resource identifiers. Add IAM policy conditions for MFA enforcement, source IP restrictions, and time-based access windows.

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Sid": "AllowS3ReadSpecificBucket",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "s3:GetObject",
        "s3:ListBucket"
      ],
      "Resource": [
        "arn:aws:s3:::production-data-bucket",
        "arn:aws:s3:::production-data-bucket/*"
      ],
      "Condition": {
        "Bool": {"aws:MultiFactorAuthPresent": "true"},
        "IpAddress": {"aws:SourceIp": "10.0.0.0/8"},
        "DateGreaterThan": {"aws:CurrentTime": "2025-01-01T00:00:00Z"}
      }
    }
  ]
}

Step 4: Implement Permission Boundaries

Attach permission boundaries to IAM roles and users to define the maximum scope of permissions an entity can receive, preventing privilege escalation even if an administrator attaches an overly permissive policy.

# Create a permission boundary policy
aws iam create-policy \
  --policy-name DeveloperPermissionBoundary \
  --policy-document file://developer-boundary.json

# Attach the boundary to an IAM role
aws iam put-role-permissions-boundary \
  --role-name DeveloperRole \
  --permissions-boundary "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:policy/DeveloperPermissionBoundary"

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Sid": "AllowCommonServices",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "s3:*",

…