AWS IAM Guide Reveals Why Your EC2 Is Secretly Stealing S3 Access – And How Roles Fix It Before Audit Armageddon

Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides a comprehensive identity and access management (IAM) system, enabling users to manage access to resources securely. IAM fundamentals include authentication, authorization, and policy types, such as AWS managed policies, customer managed policies, and inline policies. The policy structure is based on JSON and includes key elements like effect, action, resource, and condition. Security best practices recommend least privilege, using roles instead of long-term credentials, and enabling multi-factor authentication. IAM roles are temporary identities assumed by entities, such as EC2 instances or Lambda functions, to access resources without permanent credentials. Common role use cases include EC2 accessing S3, Lambda accessing DynamoDB, and cross-account access. Hands-on labs provide step-by-step guidance on creating IAM users, groups, and roles, demonstrating the importance of secure access management in cloud computing. By following IAM fundamentals and best practices, organizations can ensure secure and efficient access to AWS resources.