Book Image

Cloud Security Automation

By : Prashant Priyam
Book Image

Cloud Security Automation

By: Prashant Priyam

Overview of this book

Security issues are still a major concern for all IT organizations. For many enterprises, the move to cloud computing has raised concerns for security, but when applications are architected with focus on security, cloud platforms can be made just as secure as on-premises platforms. Cloud instances can be kept secure by employing security automation that helps make your data meet your organization's security policy. This book starts with the basics of why cloud security is important and how automation can be the most effective way of controlling cloud security. You will then delve deeper into the AWS cloud environment and its security services by dealing with security functions such as Identity and Access Management and will also learn how these services can be automated. Moving forward, you will come across aspects such as cloud storage and data security, automating cloud deployments, and so on. Then, you'll work with OpenStack security modules and learn how private cloud security functions can be automated for better time- and cost-effectiveness. Toward the end of the book, you will gain an understanding of the security compliance requirements for your Cloud. By the end of this book, you will have hands-on experience of automating your cloud security and governance.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
Title Page
Packt Upsell
Contributors
Preface
Index

How does AWS work in IAM?


Now we will look at the anatomy of IAM and see how it works. In AWS, IAM consists of six elements:

  • Principal
  • Request
  • Authentication 
  • Authorization 
  • Actions
  • Resources

Let's understand what all these six elements are:

  • Principal: Principal is an entity that performs some action on AWS resources. It is basically an Amazon Resource Name (ARN) such as Principal": { "AWS": "arn:aws:iam:: 202785070987:root" }. It means that all the users, roles, groups, and federated applications are principals, as they all are responsible for performing an action on AWS resources.
  • Request: When principal wants to perform an action, it actually sends a request to AWS. Here, a request consists of the following:
    • Who is going to perform an action (that is, information about principal)
    • Which action will be performed (that is, action detail)
    • Where the action will be performed (that is, resources)
    • So, request data includes the following:
      • Principal information
      • Environment variables such as IP, user agent,...