AWS and Cloudanix team co-authored this blog: Real-Time Threat and Anomaly Detection for Workloads on AWS

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How to secure AWS IAM?

Root account has full permissions across the entire account. Root account should not have access keys. Also, it certainly shouldn't access any service. Instead, create IAM users with predefined roles.

Root Account Should Not Have Access Keys

Root account has full permissions across the entire account. Root account should not have access keys. Also, it certainly shouldn't access any service. Instead, create IAM users with predefined roles.

Root Account Access Keys Should Be Rotated

Root account should not have access keys. If at all you have that, then the keys should be rotated periodically.

Certificates Should Not Be Tied With Root Account

Certificates should not be tied with root accounts.

Root Account Certificates Should Be Rotated

Certificates tied with root accounts needs rotation.

Root account Should Have MFA

Multifactor Authentication is strongly recommended to be enabled for every account with no exceptions in order to secure your AWS environment and adhere to IAM security best practices.

Root Account Should Have Password Rotation

Ensure that your root account password is rotated every few days.

AWS Account Should Have A Minimum Number of Admins

Your AWS account should have minimum number of admins

AWS Account Should Not Have Too Many Admins

Your AWS account has too many admins.

User Account Without Any Usage Should Be Removed

Any unused IAM user without console access and API access should be removed as an extra security measure for protecting your AWS resources against unapproved access.

MFA Should Be Enabled On User Accounts

MFA must be enabled on user accounts. AWS recommends that you configure multi-factor authentication (MFA) to help protect your AWS resources.

User Account Access keys Should Be Rotated

The access keys should rotated periodically.

User Account Certificates Should Be Rotated

The certificates should be rotated periodically.

Inactive User Account Access keys Should Be Dropped

Inactive access keys should be dropped.

User Console Access Inactive

Users who are infrequent or do not need access to console, their account access should be cleared off.

User Account Service Inactivity

Checks inactivity of any user on a service. Those priviledges should be removed for better security posture.

Users Should Not Have Inline Policies

IAM users should not have Inline policies. It is recommended that IAM policies be applied directly to groups and roles but not users.

User Account Should Not Have Multiple Access Keys

Multiple access keys for the same user should be avoided. There should be just 1 access key per user account.

Inactive Roles Should Be Removed

Inactive roles should be cleaned up.

Role Service Inactivity

Roles which have access to services but have not used in past several days should be looked into and cleaned up.

Roles Should Not Have Inline Policies

Role should not have inline policies attached to them.

Groups Without Users Should Be Removed

Empty groups should be cleaned up and should not linger around.

ELB Certificates Should Be Rotated

Ensures that you rotate your certificate before the set configurable days.

Complex Password Policy Should Be Present

Password policy should be complex enough so that users can set passwords which are not easy to guess and crack.

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