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IAM & Least Privilege

iam-least-privilegesecurityiamleast-privilegepolicy

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Full lesson · 8 learning steps Open any exercise for focused practice

Step 1 of 8 · intro card

Learn IAM & Least Privilege

Cloud Security

Cloud IAM grants permissions to identities and roles. Follow least privilege: narrow the actions and resources, avoid wildcards, and prefer short-lived role credentials over long-lived keys. A policy is effect + action + resource + condition.

Identity and Access Management (IAM) controls who — users, roles, services — can do what in a cloud account. Permissions are expressed as policies attached to identities.

A policy statement has four parts: effect (Allow or Deny), action (the API operation), resource (the ARN it applies to), and an optional condition (extra requirements like requiring TLS).

The guiding rule is least privilege: grant only the actions and resources an identity truly needs, avoid broad wildcards, and prefer short-lived role credentials over long-lived access keys.

A policy is effect + action + resource + condition.

Least privilege: narrow actions and resources, avoid wildcards.

Prefer short-lived role credentials over long-lived keys.

policy:
  effect: Allow
  action: s3:GetObject
  resource: arn:aws:s3:::bucket/*
  condition: SecureTransport-true
  principle: least-privilege

Read the implementation

Connect each part of the code to the concept before you type.

1. Effect

effect decides whether the statement grants (Allow) or blocks (Deny) the listed action.

effect: Allow

2. Action

action names the specific API operation permitted — here only reading an object, not writing or deleting.

action: s3:GetObject

3. Resource

resource scopes the permission to a particular ARN so it cannot touch other buckets.

resource: arn:aws:s3:::bucket/*

4. Condition

condition adds an extra requirement — here that the request arrives over TLS.

condition: SecureTransport-true

5. Least privilege

Grant only the narrow actions and resources an identity truly needs, nothing more.

principle: least-privilege

A complete learning loop

Understand

Read the concept map and follow the code breakdown.

Reconstruct

Type the implementation, repair mistakes and work through every recall exercise.

Verify

Use the final check without hints; revisit weak concepts in short practice sessions.