Before we look at some of the recent enhancements made to IAM, here is a quick crash course on IAM for the uninitiated. AWS Identity and Access Management or IAM is a web service that provides secured access control mechanisms for all AWS services. You can use IAM to create users and groups, assigning users specific permissions and policies, and a lot more. The best part of all this is that IAM is completely FREE. Yup! Not a penny is required to use it.
Let's quickly look at some interesting features provided by AWS IAM:
- Multi-factor authentication: IAM allows you to provide two-factor authentications to users for added security. This means that now, along with your password, you will also have to provide a secret key/pin from a special hardware device, such as a hard token, or even from software apps such as Google Authenticator.
- Integration with other AWS products: IAM integrates with almost all AWS products and services and can be used to provide granular access rights...