Cloud Identity and Access Management
Cloud identity and access management controls who and what can access resources across cloud platforms. It defines identities, assigns permissions through policies, enforces least privilege, and provides the authentication and authorization layer for every cloud API call.
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Don't Panic
Don't Panic - Cloud Identity and Access Management
Cloud Identity and Access Management is the subject of this course. Cloud identity and access management, or IAM, controls access to cloud resources. It answers four linked questions: 1.
The useful unit of work is a closed loop: clarify the goal and boundaries, gather the inputs the practice requires, make the decision or change, record evidence, and return with owners for the next cycle. Skipping any link leaves teams busy without durable results.
Tooling supports the loop; it does not replace it. Choose tools after the boundary and evidence model are clear. Comparing products without that model produces feature matrices that do not change how the work runs.
Common failure modes include undefined ownership, metrics that count activity instead of outcomes, and irreversible steps taken without a review path. Treat those as design defects in the practice, not as individual heroics to compensate later.
Operators should be able to explain which signals would change a decision this week. If no signal can change the plan, the practice has become ritual. Keep the feedback path short enough that evidence still influences the next cycle.
Name the owners for each stage of the loop before the work scales. Unowned stages become permanent exceptions. Record decisions with enough context that a future operator can tell why a tradeoff was accepted. Prefer fewer, sharper metrics that change behavior over broad dashboards that only describe activity after the fact.
Read the Intro for the core model. Use the Cheatsheet when you need the operating map. Updates tracks official guidance when this course configures an update source; otherwise the practice is settled without a live feed.
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Sources
- https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-4/
Supports
- Current Revision 4 structure for identity proofing, authentication, and federation
- Risk-based digital identity controls and continuous evaluation
- https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-4/sp800-63/introduction/
Supports
- Identity, authentication, and federation assurance concepts
- Scope of digital identity risk management
- https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-4/sp800-63b.html
Supports
- Authentication and authenticator management terminology
- Multi-factor and phishing-resistant authentication concepts
- https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-4/sp800-63c.html
Supports
- Federation roles, assertions, relying parties, and trust agreements
- Local relying-party responsibility after federation
- https://pages.nist.gov/zero-trust-architecture/VolumeB/ZeroTrustTakeaways.html
Supports
- Default denial, least privilege, separation of duties, and contextual policy
- Resource discovery, policy validation, and continuous review
- https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/best-practices.html
Supports
- Workforce federation and temporary credentials
- Workload roles instead of long-lived credentials
- Multi-factor authentication, least privilege, conditions, and access analysis
- Removal of unused identities, roles, permissions, policies, and credentials
- https://docs.cloud.google.com/iam/docs/overview
Supports
- Principal, role, permission, resource, and allow-policy model
- Resource hierarchy and inherited policy scope
- Conditions, deny policies, boundaries, and temporary privileged access
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/identity/conditional-access/plan-conditional-access
Supports
- Contextual access signals and policy decisions
- Staged policy deployment, exclusions, emergency access, and temporary privilege
- https://openid.net/developers/how-connect-works/
Supports
- OpenID Connect as an authentication protocol based on OAuth
- Identity provider, relying party, identity token, and claims terminology
- https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6749
Supports
- OAuth as an authorization framework
- Access tokens as scoped and time-bound authorization credentials
- Separation between client authorization and resource-owner credentials
- https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/2023-12/ESF%20IDENTITY%20AND%20ACCESS%20MANAGEMENT%20RECOMMENDED%20BEST%20PRACTICES%20FOR%20ADMINISTRATORS%20PP-23-0248_508C.pdf
Supports
- Identity lifecycle, governance, privileged access, and administrator practices
- Logging, monitoring, and IAM threat mitigation
