Introduction

Amazon provides vital solutions and services to large organizations through Amazon Web Services (AWS). Keeping their web services secured from threats and attacks is an important concern of Amazon. That is why they have developed the AWS IAM or the AWS Identity and Access Management.

The AWS IAM gives you the power to manage or create users, permissions, groups, roles, and IAM policies. Thus utilizing it, is crucial to keep your data and services safe on the AWS.

If you are willing to learn more about the AWS IAM, then check out this article on what is AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) that I wrote.

In order to help you on that, here are five AWS IAM best practices you can follow to ensure your data’s safety and security. 

Limit the Use of AWS Root Account

It is crucial that you don’t use the AWS root account for your daily activities. The root account has the access to every resources of the AWS and of course the billing information.

It is possible that multiple users in your organization may use the root account. So limit the use of  the root account to avoid conflicts and confusing situation when things go wrong due to anyone’s action.

It is best to use the root account for completing any task of high priority. After that, log out immediately upon the completion of that task. For your daily activities on the AWS, use a different AWS IAM account for completing regular tasks.

Grant Limited Privilege Only

One of the best ways to keep your AWS IAM safe is by granting limited or least amount of privileges to other users. What this means is that you only give permission to access specific resources to your users who needs to perform a particular task.

You can always assign additional permissions to users when necessary. But other than that, grant only the required privileges to your users for completing any daily task. 

Set a Strong Password Policy

As simple as it sounds. Make sure that all the user that uses the AWS IAM have a very strong password for their accounts.

It’s more effective when you set a strong password policy. Use the policy to set certain restrictions and requirements when a user creates an account. 

You can use your password policy to define password requirements such as the minimum length, character types, and how often a password needs to be rotated. 

Set Multi-Factor Authentication

It is crucial to set up multi-factor authentication for all the AWS IAM users.

This is a security step that you can follow through your organization, just to be safe if anyone’s account credentials get compromised. 

Alongside the traditional way of logging in using a username and password, the MFA adds another security layer that requires temporary generated passcode to access the AWS IAM. 

An extra security layer makes it almost impossible to log in to the AWS IAM without the temporary passcode that the MFA system generates.

Remove the Unused Users

Users who don’t necessarily use the AWS IAM, should have their access to the console cancelled.

It is crucial to monitor the IAM users. Then identifying the unused ones and removing their accesses and credentials from the console.

Credentials like access keys and passwords should be removed if someone moves to a new job, department or does not have any AWS IAM related work. 

Conclusion

Well there you have it. Some of the effective best practices that you can follow to ensure the security of your AWS IAM. Now, there may be more and it is recommended that you explore the vulnerabilities and take the appropriate security measures. 

Other than that, feel free to share the article and don’t forget to comment below what you think.