Identity and Access Management (IAM) is the gatekeeper to your cloud environment. Properly configured IAM is essential for protecting sensitive data and preventing unauthorized access. This post summarizes key IAM best practices and provides a checklist for auditing your IAM setup.

IAM Best Practices: A Cross-Cloud Summary

These best practices apply across major cloud providers like AWS, GCP, and Azure:

• Group Users: Instead of managing individual user permissions, create user groups and assign permissions to the groups. This simplifies administration and ensures consistency.
• Strong Passwords & MFA: Enforce strong password policies and require multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all users, especially administrators.
• Principle of Least Privilege: Grant only the minimum necessary permissions to users and roles. Regularly review and revoke unnecessary access.
• Audit & Monitor: Enable logging (e.g., CloudTrail, Stackdriver) and set up monitoring and alerts for suspicious activity. Regularly review logs.
• Use Roles (AWS): Use IAM roles for EC2 instances (and similar compute services) instead of embedding access keys.
• Organize Resources (GCP): Use projects in GCP to group and isolate resources, applying least privilege access control at the project level.
• Custom Roles (GCP): Define custom roles in GCP for granular access control based on specific needs.
• Regular Reviews: Periodically audit all IAM permissions to ensure they remain appropriate and aligned with business needs.

IAM Assessment Checklist: Are You Secure?

Use this checklist to audit your IAM configuration:

1. User Access: Are user accounts only for necessary individuals? Is least privilege enforced? Are access reviews conducted regularly?
2. Password Policies: Are strong password policies enforced (length, complexity, expiration)? Are weak/expired passwords identified and addressed?
3. Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Is MFA enforced for all users, especially admins?
4. IAM Roles: Are IAM roles used instead of access keys where possible? Do roles adhere to least privilege? Are they regularly reviewed?
5. Access Keys: Are access keys securely managed and regularly rotated? Are inactive keys deleted? Are keys with excessive permissions identified and reviewed?
6. Security Logging & Monitoring: Are CloudTrail/Stackdriver (or equivalent) properly configured? Are all API calls logged? Are CloudWatch alarms/alerts set up for suspicious activity?
7. Permissions Boundaries: Are permission boundaries defined for users and roles to restrict actions and resources?
8. Least Privilege & Policy Evaluation: Do IAM policies enforce least privilege? Is the IAM Policy Simulator used to evaluate policy changes?
9. Unused Accounts: Are unused or idle users and roles regularly identified and their permissions revoked?
10. Compliance & Auditing: Does the IAM configuration comply with industry best practices and regulations? Are regular audits conducted?

By following these best practices and conducting regular audits, you can significantly improve the security posture of your cloud environment. Don’t leave your cloud gates unlocked!