Home > Articles

This chapter is from the book

Access Controls

AWS solutions must provide secure access by clients and providers of the technologies. This is accomplished using a robust set of technologies.

Infrastructure Security

Amazon provides security capabilities and services to increase privacy and control network access. These include the following:

  • Network firewalls built into Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), and web application firewall capabilities in AWS WAF, let you create private networks and control access to your instances and applications.

  • Encryption in transit with TLS across all services.

  • Connectivity options that enable private, or dedicated, connections from your office or on-premises environment.

Identity and Access Management

IAM is a cloud service that helps you securely control access to AWS resources. You use IAM to control who is authenticated and authorized to use resources.

Upon AWS account creation, you begin with a single sign-in that has complete access to all AWS services in the account. This sign-in is called the AWS account root user. You access AWS with the account by signing in with the email address and password you used at sign-up.

Amazon strongly recommends that you do not use the root account for your everyday tasks, even the administrative ones. Instead, follow the best practice of using the root account only to create your first IAM user. Then securely lock away the root account credentials and use them to perform only a few account and service management tasks.

IAM permits extremely fine-grained permissions. For example, you might grant someone read access to only a single bucket of objects in S3. Or you might use IAM to control specific calls (GetObject) against a single object stored in S3. Perhaps you examine a particular time/date range or the source IP address of the call.

Other features of IAM include the following:

  • Access from service to resource in AWS: For example, you can have an application running on an EC2 instance access an S3 bucket. As you will learn later in this chapter, we often use roles for such access.

  • Multi-factor authentication (MFA): Permitting access through a password and a code from an approved device, thus strengthening security greatly. Figure 5-4 shows the configuration area for MFA in the IAM Management Console.

    FIGURE 5-4

    FIGURE 5-4 Configuring MFA for an Account

  • Identity federation: Users who have already authenticated with another service can gain temporary access to resources and services in your account.

  • Identity information for assurance: CloudTrail can trace and log all API activity against every service and resource in your account. Figure 5-5 shows the CloudTrail Dashboard in AWS.

    FIGURE 5-5

    FIGURE 5-5 The CloudTrail Dashboard

  • PCI DSS compliance: IAM supports the processing, storage, and transmission of credit card data by a merchant or service provider, and it has been validated as being compliant with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS).

  • Integration: IAM integrates with every major service of AWS.

  • Eventually consistent: Amazon replicates important data around the world with their Global Infrastructure to help ensure high availability (HA). As a result, data in some locations might lag others. Therefore, with IAM, consider implementing your changes for IAM first, and then verify full replication before working with dependent service deployments.

  • Always free: Whereas some services of AWS can be used for one year free (using the Free Tier account), IAM services remain free for the life of your account.

  • Accessibility options: You can access the components of IAM in a variety of ways, including the AWS Management Console, AWS command-line tools, AWS SDKs, and IAM HTTPS API.

key_topic_icon.jpg

It is critical that you understand the main identities you’ll use in IAM. Realize that there is much more to IAM than these identities, but at this point in your AWS education, we are covering the main foundational components.

Remember, an account that supersedes the IAM service is root. As stated earlier in this chapter, this account should rarely be used.

Identities in IAM consist of the following:

  • Users: These are the entities you create in AWS to represent the people or services that use the IAM user to interact with AWS. When you create an IAM user, you grant it permissions by making it a member of a group. You assign appropriate permission policies to the group. This is the recommended approach from Amazon. Note that you could directly attaching policies to the user, but this is not recommended because it is not a scalable approach and could make security management more difficult. You can also clone the permissions of an existing IAM user. This approach automatically makes the new user a member of the same groups and attaches all the same policies. Figure 5-6 shows a user in AWS.

    FIGURE 5-6

    FIGURE 5-6 A User in AWS IAM

  • Groups: A collection of IAM users. You can use groups to specify permissions for a collection of users, which can make those permissions easier to manage for those users.

  • Roles: These are similar to user accounts, but they do not have credentials (password or access keys) associated with them.

key_topic_icon.jpg

In the following steps, we create a group that provides full access to S3 in AWS and then create a user, adding it to this group:

  • Step 1. Navigate to the AWS Management Console and then search for the IAM service.

  • Step 2. Select Groups in the left navigation pane. Figure 5-7 shows the Groups console.

    FIGURE 5-7

    FIGURE 5-7 Groups in IAM

  • Step 3. Click the Create New Group button.

  • Step 4. Set the Group Name and click Next Step.

  • Step 5. In the Attach Policy page (shown in Figure 5-8), enter S3 in the Filter option.

    FIGURE 5-8

    FIGURE 5-8 The Attach Policy Page

  • Step 6. Check AmazonS3FullAccess and click Next Step.

  • Step 7. Review the configuration and click Create Group.

  • Step 8. Click the Users option in the left navigation pane.

  • Step 9. Click the Add User button.

  • Step 10. Provide the username and then allow both types of access to the accounts. Leave the defaults in place regarding the password. Figure 5-9 shows this page.

    FIGURE 5-9

    FIGURE 5-9 Naming the User Account

  • Step 11. Click Next: Permissions.

  • Step 12. Add the user to the group you created earlier in these steps. Click Next: Tags.

  • Step 13. Click Next: Review. Remember, adding tags is an excellent idea to indicate various identifiers, but here in a lab environment, we will just skip it.

  • Step 14. Review your settings and click Create User.

Best Practices with IAM

While IAM in AWS provides many exciting capabilities, its complexity can cause organizations to make fatal flaws when working with the service. This is why following best practices is critical.

key_topic_icon.jpg

You should consider following most (if not all) of these recommendations.

  • Care of the root account: The root account for your AWS implementation should be used infrequently. The current best practice is to delete any access keys associated with root. Root should never have automation keys. You should never automate against root, and the only reason to have keys is for automation. Root should have only a login (email address and password) and physical MFA. Physical MFA is the best practice because you do not want a single person with root access on the phone; it should be a separate hardware device locked up and not used except in an emergency. As you no doubt realize, MFA for root on a phone, which could be lost, could be obtained easily. Some companies have one team manage the password for root, while another team manages the physical MFA device. This ensures checks and balances to gain access to root. Exceptions to these best practices may be in the case of organizations where new AWS accounts are managed via automation.

  • Create individual IAM users: Because you do not want to use root for your AWS implementation, it is critical that you create additional users. This would include for yourself so that you are not required to use root. In larger organizations, you will have a large team working on AWS. You must create multiple users for your staff to ensure that everyone is authenticating and being authorized for only those resources and permissions that are required for members to do their jobs. You will most likely have one user in IAM for every person who requires administrative access.

  • Use groups to assign permissions to IAM users: Even though it might seem silly, if you are the sole administrator of your AWS implementation, you will want to create a group and assign permissions to this group. Why? If you do need to grow and hire another administrator, you can just add that user account to the group you created. We always want our AWS implementations to scale, and using groups helps ensure this. It should also be noted that applying permissions to groups instead of individual user accounts will help eliminate assignment errors, as we are minimizing the number of permissions we must grant.

  • Use AWS-defined policies for permissions: Amazon was very kind to us. They defined a ton of policies we can easily leverage when working with IAM. What’s more, AWS maintains and updates these policies as they introduce new services and API operations. The policies that AWS created for us are defined around the most common tasks we need to perform. These make up an excellent starting place for your own policies. You can copy a given policy and customize it to make it even more secure. Oftentimes, you will find the default defined policies are too broad with access.

  • Grant least privilege: Create the IAM user identity for your AWS user that provides the least privileges they require. That way, if an attacker does manage to capture security credentials and begins acting as that user in the AWS architecture, he can do a limited amount of damage.

  • Review IAM permissions: You should not use a “set and forget” policy when it comes to your permissions in IAM. You should consistently review the permissions level assigned to ensure that you are following least privilege concepts and that you are still granting those permissions to the groups that require them. There is even a policy summary option within IAM to facilitate this.

  • Always configure a strong password policy for your users: It is a sad fact of human nature: Your users will tend to be lazy about setting (and changing) their passwords. They will tend to use simple passwords that are easy for them to remember. Unfortunately, these simple passwords are also easy to crack. Help your security by setting a strong password policy that your users must adhere to. Figure 5-10 shows the configuration of a password policy for user accounts in the IAM Management Console.

    FIGURE 5-10

    FIGURE 5-10 Configuring a Password Policy

  • Enable multi-factor authentication for privileged user accounts: Of course, you do this for the seldom-used AWS root account, but you should also protect key admin accounts you have created in AWS. Using multi-factor authentication (MFA) ensures the user knows something (like a password) and also possesses something (like a smartphone). With most AWS environments today, MFA is considered mandatory.

  • Use roles: You should consider the use of roles in AWS when you have applications or services running on EC2 instances that need to access other services or resources.

  • Use roles to delegate permissions: Roles can also prove valuable when you need to permit one AWS account to access resources in another AWS account. This is a much more secure option to providing the other AWS account with username and password information for your account. And remember, the use of roles is always recommended within an AWS account.

  • Do not share access keys: It might be tempting to take the access keys that permit programmatic access to a service or resource and just share those with another account that needs the same access. Resist this temptation. Remember, you can always create a role that encompasses the required access.

  • Rotate credentials: Be sure to change passwords and access keys regularly in AWS. The reason for this, of course, is the fact that if these credentials are compromised, you will have minimized the damage that can be done when the stolen credentials no longer function. Roles rotate credentials automatically for you many times per day. This is a huge security advantage and makes their use desirable, especially at scale.

  • Remove unnecessary credentials: Because it is so easy to learn and test new features in AWS, it can get messy as far as IAM components you leave in place that are no longer needed are concerned. Be sure to routinely audit your resources for any “droppings” that are no longer needed. AWS even assists in this regard with structuring reports around credentials that have not been recently used. Again, roles provide another built-in advantage in this regard.

  • Use policy conditions: Always consider building conditions into your security policies. For example, access might have to come from a select range of IP addresses, or MFA might be required.

  • Monitor, monitor, monitor: AWS services provide the option for an intense amount of logging. Here are just some of the services where careful logging and analysis can dramatically improve security:

    • CloudFront

    • CloudTrail

    • CloudWatch

    • AWS Config

    • S3

Exam Preparation Tasks

As mentioned in the section “How to Use This Book” in the Introduction, you have a couple of choices for exam preparation: the exercises here, Chapter 8, “Final Preparation,” and the exam simulation questions in the Pearson Test Prep Software Online.

Pearson IT Certification Promotional Mailings & Special Offers

I would like to receive exclusive offers and hear about products from Pearson IT Certification and its family of brands. I can unsubscribe at any time.

Overview


Pearson Education, Inc., 221 River Street, Hoboken, New Jersey 07030, (Pearson) presents this site to provide information about Pearson IT Certification products and services that can be purchased through this site.

This privacy notice provides an overview of our commitment to privacy and describes how we collect, protect, use and share personal information collected through this site. Please note that other Pearson websites and online products and services have their own separate privacy policies.

Collection and Use of Information


To conduct business and deliver products and services, Pearson collects and uses personal information in several ways in connection with this site, including:

Questions and Inquiries

For inquiries and questions, we collect the inquiry or question, together with name, contact details (email address, phone number and mailing address) and any other additional information voluntarily submitted to us through a Contact Us form or an email. We use this information to address the inquiry and respond to the question.

Online Store

For orders and purchases placed through our online store on this site, we collect order details, name, institution name and address (if applicable), email address, phone number, shipping and billing addresses, credit/debit card information, shipping options and any instructions. We use this information to complete transactions, fulfill orders, communicate with individuals placing orders or visiting the online store, and for related purposes.

Surveys

Pearson may offer opportunities to provide feedback or participate in surveys, including surveys evaluating Pearson products, services or sites. Participation is voluntary. Pearson collects information requested in the survey questions and uses the information to evaluate, support, maintain and improve products, services or sites; develop new products and services; conduct educational research; and for other purposes specified in the survey.

Contests and Drawings

Occasionally, we may sponsor a contest or drawing. Participation is optional. Pearson collects name, contact information and other information specified on the entry form for the contest or drawing to conduct the contest or drawing. Pearson may collect additional personal information from the winners of a contest or drawing in order to award the prize and for tax reporting purposes, as required by law.

Newsletters

If you have elected to receive email newsletters or promotional mailings and special offers but want to unsubscribe, simply email information@informit.com.

Service Announcements

On rare occasions it is necessary to send out a strictly service related announcement. For instance, if our service is temporarily suspended for maintenance we might send users an email. Generally, users may not opt-out of these communications, though they can deactivate their account information. However, these communications are not promotional in nature.

Customer Service

We communicate with users on a regular basis to provide requested services and in regard to issues relating to their account we reply via email or phone in accordance with the users' wishes when a user submits their information through our Contact Us form.

Other Collection and Use of Information


Application and System Logs

Pearson automatically collects log data to help ensure the delivery, availability and security of this site. Log data may include technical information about how a user or visitor connected to this site, such as browser type, type of computer/device, operating system, internet service provider and IP address. We use this information for support purposes and to monitor the health of the site, identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents and appropriately scale computing resources.

Web Analytics

Pearson may use third party web trend analytical services, including Google Analytics, to collect visitor information, such as IP addresses, browser types, referring pages, pages visited and time spent on a particular site. While these analytical services collect and report information on an anonymous basis, they may use cookies to gather web trend information. The information gathered may enable Pearson (but not the third party web trend services) to link information with application and system log data. Pearson uses this information for system administration and to identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents, appropriately scale computing resources and otherwise support and deliver this site and its services.

Cookies and Related Technologies

This site uses cookies and similar technologies to personalize content, measure traffic patterns, control security, track use and access of information on this site, and provide interest-based messages and advertising. Users can manage and block the use of cookies through their browser. Disabling or blocking certain cookies may limit the functionality of this site.

Do Not Track

This site currently does not respond to Do Not Track signals.

Security


Pearson uses appropriate physical, administrative and technical security measures to protect personal information from unauthorized access, use and disclosure.

Children


This site is not directed to children under the age of 13.

Marketing


Pearson may send or direct marketing communications to users, provided that

  • Pearson will not use personal information collected or processed as a K-12 school service provider for the purpose of directed or targeted advertising.
  • Such marketing is consistent with applicable law and Pearson's legal obligations.
  • Pearson will not knowingly direct or send marketing communications to an individual who has expressed a preference not to receive marketing.
  • Where required by applicable law, express or implied consent to marketing exists and has not been withdrawn.

Pearson may provide personal information to a third party service provider on a restricted basis to provide marketing solely on behalf of Pearson or an affiliate or customer for whom Pearson is a service provider. Marketing preferences may be changed at any time.

Correcting/Updating Personal Information


If a user's personally identifiable information changes (such as your postal address or email address), we provide a way to correct or update that user's personal data provided to us. This can be done on the Account page. If a user no longer desires our service and desires to delete his or her account, please contact us at customer-service@informit.com and we will process the deletion of a user's account.

Choice/Opt-out


Users can always make an informed choice as to whether they should proceed with certain services offered by Adobe Press. If you choose to remove yourself from our mailing list(s) simply visit the following page and uncheck any communication you no longer want to receive: www.pearsonitcertification.com/u.aspx.

Sale of Personal Information


Pearson does not rent or sell personal information in exchange for any payment of money.

While Pearson does not sell personal information, as defined in Nevada law, Nevada residents may email a request for no sale of their personal information to NevadaDesignatedRequest@pearson.com.

Supplemental Privacy Statement for California Residents


California residents should read our Supplemental privacy statement for California residents in conjunction with this Privacy Notice. The Supplemental privacy statement for California residents explains Pearson's commitment to comply with California law and applies to personal information of California residents collected in connection with this site and the Services.

Sharing and Disclosure


Pearson may disclose personal information, as follows:

  • As required by law.
  • With the consent of the individual (or their parent, if the individual is a minor)
  • In response to a subpoena, court order or legal process, to the extent permitted or required by law
  • To protect the security and safety of individuals, data, assets and systems, consistent with applicable law
  • In connection the sale, joint venture or other transfer of some or all of its company or assets, subject to the provisions of this Privacy Notice
  • To investigate or address actual or suspected fraud or other illegal activities
  • To exercise its legal rights, including enforcement of the Terms of Use for this site or another contract
  • To affiliated Pearson companies and other companies and organizations who perform work for Pearson and are obligated to protect the privacy of personal information consistent with this Privacy Notice
  • To a school, organization, company or government agency, where Pearson collects or processes the personal information in a school setting or on behalf of such organization, company or government agency.

Links


This web site contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects Personal Information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this web site.

Requests and Contact


Please contact us about this Privacy Notice or if you have any requests or questions relating to the privacy of your personal information.

Changes to this Privacy Notice


We may revise this Privacy Notice through an updated posting. We will identify the effective date of the revision in the posting. Often, updates are made to provide greater clarity or to comply with changes in regulatory requirements. If the updates involve material changes to the collection, protection, use or disclosure of Personal Information, Pearson will provide notice of the change through a conspicuous notice on this site or other appropriate way. Continued use of the site after the effective date of a posted revision evidences acceptance. Please contact us if you have questions or concerns about the Privacy Notice or any objection to any revisions.

Last Update: November 17, 2020