Ensuring the security of your cloud environment is paramount. A critical aspect is understanding precisely which internal identities within your AWS account have access to sensitive resources. While AWS IAM Access Analyzer has been instrumental in identifying unintended external access, a powerful new capability now allows you to verify internal resource access, significantly enhancing your security posture.
This enhanced functionality helps you analyze the permissions granted to your IAM principals—users, roles, groups—to various resource types. You can now easily discover which internal identities have been granted access to crucial AWS resources such as S3 buckets, SQS queues, KMS keys, IAM roles, Lambda functions, and Secrets Manager secrets.
Using the analyzer for internal access verification provides clarity on access within your defined trust boundaries. It helps pinpoint potential permission issues or overly permissive policies that could pose risks, even if only accessible internally. This verification process is vital for adhering to the principle of least privilege, ensuring that principals only have the permissions absolutely necessary to perform their tasks.
The analysis provides findings that detail the access permissions granted by the resource policies. You can then review these findings to confirm that access aligns with your internal security requirements and compliance standards. This makes it simpler to identify and rectify configurations that might inadvertently grant internal principals broader access than intended.
Leveraging this feature of IAM Access Analyzer for internal checks complements your existing security practices. It provides an automated way to continuously monitor and validate the internal access granted through resource policies, offering peace of mind and a stronger security foundation for your AWS environment. It’s a crucial step in maintaining tight control over your critical AWS resources.
Source: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/verify-internal-access-to-critical-aws-resources-with-new-iam-access-analyzer-capabilities/
