Paving a Path to Least-Privilege with IAMOps

Keeping Cloud computing secure can seem like an infinite race with the incredible pace of change in Cloud IAM. Amazon Web Services alone already has over 13,000 permissions — with another wave of rollouts coming right around the corner at AWS re:Invent 2022! 

Every enterprise we’ve interviewed has had operational headaches scaling up & speeding up changes to Cloud IAM. Developers deserve simpler self-service access to the resources they require. Security analysts deserve stronger safety and risk reviews. And Operations admins deserve smarter access approvals.

Just as DevOps empowered Devs to share responsibility with Ops by enforcing approvals, automating deployment, and integrating observability, Noq’s approach to automating IAMOps can help Dev, Sec, and Ops teams share responsibility for operating Cloud IAM at least privilege with less effort. Working together, they can reduce the risk of misconfigurations that can lead to privilege escalation, privacy breaches, or data exfiltration, among other risks.

Sharing responsibility, responsibly

Cloud providers promote the Shared Responsibility Model of Cloud security because it defines a clear fault line between vendors and users… by placing customers at fault for 99% of Cloud security failures by 2025, according to Gartner. 

Configuring Cloud security settings is even harder once it involves several teams on the customer’s side. Each of those teams, in turn, may only manage one of AWS’s seven layers of policy evaluation logic and multiple user authentication approaches. Security experts might mandate Organization-wide Service Control Policies (SCPs) that contradict Platform Engineering’s prepackaged Customer-Managed Policies (CMPs)—  while neither is prepared to permit an innovative developer to experiment with some cutting-edge AWS service.

As enterprise customers grow, they develop ad hoc controls to prevent accidental alterations in IAM. This stage of the journey to least-privilege is an opportunity to re-apply the same shared responsibility model internally. Just as IAM controls access to Cloud resources, IAMOps workflows control access to IAM itself. 

Get, Give, and Guard Access with IAMOps

Cloud providers implement IAM, while customers implement IAMOps to manage IAM. Noq helps developers ask for access to Cloud resources; administrators approve access to Cloud identities; and security professionals protect access to Cloud infrastructure.

Help Developers Get Access: improve developer experiences with self-service interfaces available on the Web,  from the command line, or over chat. Get credentials for authorized roles, or ask for temporary access to more powerful roles. Get new permissions added to a role, or even discover which permissions an application needs to add, just by running it. Get attribute-based access by changing tags or joining groups.

Help Admins Give Access: streamline access approvals while keeping auditable records. Delegate access reviews to peers, managers, or resource owners. Rollback changes or break-glass in case of emergencies. Track which permissions actually get used and which roles really get used. Separate accounts while preserving trust relationships.

Help Security Guard Access: restrict access to unused identities, credentials, and permissions. Require multi-factor re-authentication for sensitive access. Use automated reasoning to approve low-risk requests and hold high-risk requests. Refactor policies for specific people, groups, or programs.

Guardrails and Guideposts on the Journey to Least-Privilege 

Upholding the principle of Least Privilege is a journey, not a destination. Noq can assess where teams are starting from by mapping over-privileged identities and policies & navigating how IAM changes impact developer velocity. From there, Noq also offers guideposts to operate securely and efficiently within the AWS Well-Architected Framework. Along the way, Noq can protect policies from violating compliance controls using guardrails enforced by automated reasoning. Easy-to-use self-service IAMOps that give the right people the right privileges for the right time also makes it easier to restrict access, with confidence that changes won’t affect users or interrupt services. 

If you are interested in learning more about how IAMOps can help developers take control of IAM without administrators losing control of IAM, please contact us to schedule a demo and an opportunity to join our Design Partner program.