IAM Users and Credentials

5 minutes 5 Questions

IAM users are individual identities that you create in your AWS account to represent users or applications accessing AWS services. When creating IAM users, it is essential to provide them with the right set of credentials so they can assume the necessary permissions within your resource structure. Typically, IAM users utilize AWS Management Console access (username and password) and/or programmatic access (access keys). Rotate and manage these credentials regularly using the AWS IAM Console to maintain a secure environment. By managing users and their credentials, you can ensure the principle of least privilege, only providing access as necessary to carry out tasks within your AWS infrastructure.

Understanding IAM Users and Credentials - An AWS Solution Architect Guide

Introduction:
AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) is a feature of your AWS account that is provided at no additional charge. It allows you to securely control access to AWS services and resources for your users.

Importance:
Understanding IAM is crucial because it helps to manage users, groups, roles, and their corresponding level of access to AWS Console. It also centrally manages your AWS environment’s security, providing essential features like multi-factor authentication for a robust and secure environment.

What is it?:
IAM Users are entities with unique security credentials that are used to access AWS Services. These users can be people, applications or servers.

How it Works:
IAM users can be created under your AWS account, and you can assign them individual security credentials, such as access keys, passwords, and multi-factor authentication devices, or request temporary security credentials to provide users access to AWS services and resources.

Exam Tips:
Answering Questions on IAM Users and Credentials:
Remember the following key points while answering questions concerning IAM:
- IAM is universal and does not apply to a specific region.
- Root user is the first user, it possesses complete access by default.
- In IAM, new users have no permissions when they are first created.
- We can attach and detach IAM policies from IAM users, groups, and roles. If a policy is attached to a group, that policy is inherited by the users in that group.
- IAM Roles allow applications to borrow security credentials.
- IAM supports identity federation for delegated access to the AWS Management Console or AWS APIs.
- IAM is essential for follow security best practices in AWS.

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Question 1

A company recently hired a new developer and wants to give them programmatic access to AWS services. What is the recommended way to achieve this?

Create a Cross-Account role. Give the developer the root account access keys. Create an IAM user, assign the required permissions, and generate access keys. Use the AWS Management Console to delegate access.

Correct Answer: Create an IAM user, assign the required permissions, and generate access keys.

Creating an IAM user, assigning the required permissions, and generating access keys is the recommended way to provide programmatic access to AWS services. Other options like giving the root access keys or generating a new set of access keys for the root user is not secure, and using Cross-Account roles or AWS Organizations is not suitable for the scenario described.

Question 2

A company wants to provide access to their S3 resources to an external organization without sharing IAM users or access keys. What is the recommended way to achieve this?

Use VPC endpoints to grant access to the external organization. Create a role with the required S3 permissions and establish a trust policy for the external organization. Create an access point to share access to the specified S3 resources. Create a bucket policy providing public read access to the required resources.

Correct Answer: Create a role with the required S3 permissions and establish a trust policy for the external organization.

Creating a role with the required S3 permissions and establishing a trust policy for the external organization allows secure and controlled access without sharing IAM users or access keys. Options like access points, bucket policies, or VPC endpoints are not suitable for cross-account access. Sharing access keys or using AWS Organizations is not recommended for this scenario.

Question 3

A company has a web application that uses the AWS SDK to connect to an S3 bucket. They want to ensure secure access to AWS resources for their root user, but they have misplaced their access key. What should they do?

Create a new IAM user with the necessary permissions and generate access keys for that user. Create a new bucket policy to restrict access to authorized IAM users. Generate new keys for the root user and rotate them regularly. Use the AWS Key Management Service (KMS) to recover the misplaced access keys.

Correct Answer: Create a new IAM user with the necessary permissions and generate access keys for that user.

Creating a new IAM user with the necessary permissions and generating access keys for that user is the best security practice. Root users have full access to all resources and should not be used for everyday AWS tasks. Generating new keys for the root user, using KMS, or contacting AWS Support are not recommended practices.

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