What is Identity & Access Management (IAM)?

One of the most critical components of cloud security is Identity and Access Management (IAM).

This service controls who (or what) can access your cloud resources and what specific actions they are authorized to perform.

Definition:

• Identity and Access Management (IAM) is a framework of policies and technologies that enables an organization to manage digital identities and control how those identities can access resources.
• In the cloud, IAM allows you to define and manage users, groups, and roles, and then create policies that grant or deny specific permissions to access and perform actions on cloud services and resources.

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How It Works & Core Attributes:

• Identities (Who): This refers to anyone or anything that needs to interact with your cloud environment. This includes:
  • Users: Human users (e.g., administrators, developers, auditors).
  • Groups: Collections of users with the same set of permissions, simplifying management.
  • Roles: Identities assumed by trusted entities (users, services) that grant temporary permissions for specific tasks. For example, a VM might assume a role to access an S3 bucket.
• Authentication (Proof of Identity): The process of verifying an identity's credentials (e.g., username/password, multi-factor authentication, API keys) to confirm they are who they say they are.
• Authorization (What They Can Do): The process of determining what an authenticated identity is permitted to do. This is controlled by policies.
• Policies (The Rules): Documents (often in JSON format) that define permissions. They specify the "who" (principals), "what" (actions/API calls), and "on what" (resources) an identity can perform.
• Principle of Least Privilege: A fundamental security best practice in IAM. It dictates that users or services should only be granted the minimum necessary permissions to perform their required tasks, and no more. This limits the potential damage if an identity is compromised.
• Centralized Control: IAM provides a centralized system for managing access across all your cloud resources, making it easier to maintain consistent security policies.

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Analogy: A Secure Building with Access Badges Imagine a highly secure office building with various departments and restricted areas.

• The Building (Your Cloud Account): Your entire cloud environment.
• Employees (Users): The people who work in the building.
• Departments (Groups): You group employees by department (e.g., Marketing, Engineering), and everyone in that department gets common access.
• Access Badges (Policies/Permissions): Each employee or department gets a badge that grants them specific access. A marketing badge might open office doors and grant access to the marketing server room, but not the accounting vault.
• Visitor Badges (Roles): A contractor might be given a temporary "visitor" badge that only works for certain hours and only opens specific doors for a limited time.
• Security Guard (IAM Service): The guard at the entrance checks your badge (authentication) and verifies where you're allowed to go (authorization) before letting you through. They ensure no one has more access than they need.

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Common Applications:

• User Access Management: Granting specific employees or teams access to only the cloud resources they need for their job function (e.g., developers can deploy code but not delete production databases).
• Service-to-Service Communication: Allowing cloud services (e.g., a serverless function) to securely access other cloud resources (e.g., reading from an object storage bucket or writing to a database) without embedding credentials in code.
• Federated Access: Integrating your existing on-premises identity systems (e.g., Active Directory) with your cloud IAM for seamless user management.
• Auditing and Compliance: IAM provides detailed logs of who accessed what and when, which is crucial for security audits and demonstrating compliance with regulations.
• Temporary Access: Granting temporary, time-bound permissions for specific tasks, reducing the risk of long-lived, overly permissive credentials.

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Quick Note: The "First Line of Defense"

• IAM is often considered your "first line of defense" in the cloud.
• Properly configured IAM is fundamental to preventing unauthorized access and is critical for maintaining a strong security posture.