IAM Roles, Temporary Credentials & Alerting - AWS Well-Architected Framework (Security Pillar)

I recently deep dived on IAM roles, temporary credentials, and proactive alerting through the lens of the AWS Well-Architected Framework - Security Pillar, focusing on how identity, monitoring, and protection work together to reduce risk.
🚀 What I explored:
✅ Strong identity foundations (IAM Roles)
Designed a least-privilege IAM role for an EC2-based application, granting read-only access to S3 and eliminating long-term static credentials.
✅ Short-lived access with AWS STS
Used AWS Security Token Service (STS) to assume roles and generate temporary credentials, significantly reducing credential exposure and blast radius.
✅ Explicit trust relationships
Defined precise trust policies to control who can assume roles-ensuring access is intentional, secure, and auditable.
✅ Continuous monitoring & alerting
Configured CloudWatch alarms backed by AWS Config metrics to detect IAM user creation, modification, or deletion in near real time.

IAM & least privilege → Strong identity controls
STS temporary credentials → Reduced blast radius
CloudWatch & AWS Config → Detection and response
Together, these practices form a well-architected, security-first cloud foundation.
🔑 Key takeaway:
Security starts with identity. Short-lived credentials, least privilege, and real-time alerting are core principles of the AWS Well-Architected Security Pillar.
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