How does AWS IAM work?

Hey AWS Newbies! Here’s a quick explanation on how IAM works in AWS for absolute beginners… Enjoy!

AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) is a web service that helps you securely control access to AWS resources. With IAM, you can create and manage AWS users and groups, and use permissions to allow and deny their access to AWS resources.

Here's a high-level overview of how IAM works:

You create users in IAM and give them unique IAM names. You can also create groups and add users to those groups.

You create policies that specify which actions are allowed or denied on which resources. These policies are written in JSON and can be attached to users, groups, or AWS resources.

When a user attempts to access an AWS resource, IAM checks the user's permissions to determine whether the action is allowed. If the action is allowed, the user can access the resource. If the action is denied, the user cannot access the resource.

By using IAM, you can manage access to AWS resources in a fine-grained manner, giving you full control over which users can access which resources and what actions they can perform on those resources.

This helps you ensure that only authorized users have access to your resources, and helps you meet your compliance and regulatory requirements.