Direct answer
A cloud IAM review compares what an identity can actually do with the actions and resources it needs. Evaluate policy attachments, inherited grants and trust relationships together rather than reading one role name in isolation.
Inventory identities and owners
List human users, workload roles and service identities in the agreed accounts, along with owners, access purpose and environments. Identify dormant or unowned identities and distinguish emergency access from everyday administrative roles. Do not collect private keys as assessment evidence.
Reference: AWS IAM best practices.
Compare permissions with real work
For an application that reads a single storage bucket, compare its effective permissions with the intended read operations and resources. Review wildcard actions, resource scopes, inherited permissions and relevant explicit denials. Activity history can inform the review but missing activity does not prove a permission is never needed.
- Include identity, resource and organization policies where applicable.
- Identify privileged actions and cross-account trust.
- Record legitimate periodic operations that may not appear in recent logs.
Pilot a narrower role
Create a proposed policy in a test environment, validate it with the provider's tooling and exercise both the required action and an intentionally denied action. Involve the application owner and preserve a rollback plan before changing production access.
Verify and review over time
After rollout, check effective access, application health and security events. Assign an owner and review date to exceptions, and repeat the review after role or architecture changes. Keep the result scoped to assessed accounts and permissions.
Assessment limits
Effective authorization depends on the cloud provider's complete policy evaluation, service-specific rules and context. A policy simulator or brief activity sample alone cannot prove least privilege.
Frequently asked questions
Does an unused permission always mean it can be removed?
No. It may support a rare recovery or scheduled task. Confirm with the owner and test before removal.
Does a role named read-only guarantee safe access?
No. Inspect its effective permissions, resources and trust policy; names do not enforce restrictions.
Primary sources and further reading
These guides combine published security guidance with practical assessment planning. Adapt checks to the owner's policy, environment, and authorized scope.
This guide was prepared with AI assistance using the linked sources and illustrative examples. Check current vendor guidance and your environment before making changes.