How Macie works with AWS Identity and Access Management

Before you use AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) to manage access to Amazon Macie, learn which IAM features are available to use with Macie.

For a high-level view of how Macie and other AWS services work with most IAM features, see AWS services that work with IAM in the IAM User Guide.

Identity-based policies for Macie

Supports identity-based policies: Yes

Identity-based policies are JSON permissions policy documents that you can attach to an identity, such as an IAM user, group of users, or role. These policies control what actions users and roles can perform, on which resources, and under what conditions. To learn how to create an identity-based policy, see Define custom IAM permissions with customer managed policies in the IAM User Guide.

With IAM identity-based policies, you can specify allowed or denied actions and resources as well as the conditions under which actions are allowed or denied. To learn about all of the elements that you can use in a JSON policy, see IAM JSON policy elements reference in the IAM User Guide.

Amazon Macie supports identity-based policies. For examples, see Identity-based policy examples for Macie.

Resource-based policies within Macie

Supports resource-based policies: No

Resource-based policies are JSON policy documents that you attach to a resource. Examples of resource-based policies are IAM role trust policies and Amazon S3 bucket policies. In services that support resource-based policies, service administrators can use them to control access to a specific resource. For the resource where the policy is attached, the policy defines what actions a specified principal can perform on that resource and under what conditions. You must specify a principal in a resource-based policy. Principals can include accounts, users, roles, federated users, or AWS services.

To enable cross-account access, you can specify an entire account or IAM entities in another account as the principal in a resource-based policy. For more information, see Cross account resource access in IAM in the IAM User Guide.

Amazon Macie doesn't support resource-based policies. That is to say, you can't attach a policy directly to a Macie resource.

Policy actions for Macie

Supports policy actions: Yes

Administrators can use AWS JSON policies to specify who has access to what. That is, which principal can perform actions on what resources, and under what conditions.

The Action element of a JSON policy describes the actions that you can use to allow or deny access in a policy. Include actions in a policy to grant permissions to perform the associated operation.

Policy actions for Amazon Macie use the following prefix before the action:

macie2

For example, to grant someone permission to access information about all the managed data identifiers that Macie provides, which is an action that corresponds to the ListManagedDataIdentifiers operation of the Amazon Macie API, include the macie2:ListManagedDataIdentifiers action in their policy:

"Action": "macie2:ListManagedDataIdentifiers"

To specify multiple actions in a single statement, separate them with commas. For example:

"Action": [
      "macie2:ListManagedDataIdentifiers",
      "macie2:ListCustomDataIdentifiers"
]

You can also specify multiple actions by using wildcards (*). For example, to specify all actions that begin with the word List, include the following action:

"Action": "macie2:List*"

However, as a best practice, you should create policies that follow the principle of least privilege. In other words, you should create policies that include only the permissions that are required to perform a specific task.

For a list of Macie actions, see Actions defined by Amazon Macie in the Service Authorization Reference. For examples of policies that specify Macie actions, see Identity-based policy examples for Macie.

Policy resources for Macie

Supports policy resources: Yes

Administrators can use AWS JSON policies to specify who has access to what. That is, which principal can perform actions on what resources, and under what conditions.

The Resource JSON policy element specifies the object or objects to which the action applies. As a best practice, specify a resource using its Amazon Resource Name (ARN). For actions that don't support resource-level permissions, use a wildcard (*) to indicate that the statement applies to all resources.

"Resource": "*"

Amazon Macie defines the following resource types:

You can specify these types of resources in policies by using ARNs.

For example, to create a policy for the sensitive data discovery job that has the job ID 3ce05dbb7ec5505def334104bexample, you can use the following ARN:

"Resource": "arn:aws:macie2:*:*:classification-job/3ce05dbb7ec5505def334104bexample"

Or, to specify all the sensitive data discovery jobs for a certain account, use a wildcard (*):

"Resource": "arn:aws:macie2:*:123456789012:classification-job/*"

Where 123456789012 is the account ID for the AWS account that created the jobs. As a best practice, however, you should create policies that follow the principle of least privilege. In other words, you should create policies that include only the permissions that are required to perform a specific task on a specific resource.

Some Macie actions can apply to multiple resources. For example, the macie2:BatchGetCustomDataIdentifiers action can retrieve the details of multiple custom data identifiers. In these cases, a principal must have permissions to access all the resources that the action applies to. To specify multiple resources in a single statement, separate the ARNs with commas:

"Resource": [
	"arn:aws:macie2:*:*:custom-data-identifier/12g4aff9-8e22-4f2b-b3fd-3063eexample",
	"arn:aws:macie2:*:*:custom-data-identifier/2d12c96a-8e78-4ca6-b1dc-8fd65example",
	"arn:aws:macie2:*:*:custom-data-identifier/4383a69d-4a1e-4a07-8715-208ddexample"
]

For a list of Macie resource types and the ARN syntax for each one, see Resource types defined by Amazon Macie in the Service Authorization Reference. To learn which actions you can specify with each resource type, see Actions defined by Amazon Macie in the Service Authorization Reference. For examples of policies that specify resources, see Identity-based policy examples for Macie.

Policy condition keys for Macie

Supports service-specific policy condition keys: Yes

Administrators can use AWS JSON policies to specify who has access to what. That is, which principal can perform actions on what resources, and under what conditions.

The Condition element specifies when statements execute based on defined criteria. You can create conditional expressions that use condition operators, such as equals or less than, to match the condition in the policy with values in the request. To see all AWS global condition keys, see AWS global condition context keys in the IAM User Guide.

For a list of Amazon Macie condition keys, see Condition keys for Amazon Macie in the Service Authorization Reference. To learn which actions and resources you can use a condition key with, see Actions defined by Amazon Macie. For examples of policies that use condition keys, see Identity-based policy examples for Macie.

Access control lists (ACLs) in Macie

Supports ACLs: No

Access control lists (ACLs) control which principals (account members, users, or roles) have permissions to access a resource. ACLs are similar to resource-based policies, although they do not use the JSON policy document format.

Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) is an example of an AWS service that supports ACLs. To learn more, see Access control list (ACL) overview in the Amazon Simple Storage Service User Guide.

Amazon Macie doesn't support ACLs. That is to say, you can't attach an ACL to a Macie resource.

Attribute-based access control (ABAC) with Macie

Supports ABAC (tags in policies): Yes

Attribute-based access control (ABAC) is an authorization strategy that defines permissions based on attributes called tags. You can attach tags to IAM entities and AWS resources, then design ABAC policies to allow operations when the principal's tag matches the tag on the resource.

To control access based on tags, you provide tag information in the condition element of a policy using the aws:ResourceTag/key-name, aws:RequestTag/key-name, or aws:TagKeys condition keys.

If a service supports all three condition keys for every resource type, then the value is Yes for the service. If a service supports all three condition keys for only some resource types, then the value is Partial.

For more information about ABAC, see Define permissions with ABAC authorization in the IAM User Guide. To view a tutorial with steps for setting up ABAC, see Use attribute-based access control (ABAC) in the IAM User Guide.

You can attach tags to Amazon Macie resources—allow lists, custom data identifiers, filter rules and suppression rules, member accounts, and sensitive data discovery jobs. You can also control access to these types of resources by providing tag information in the Condition element of a policy. For information about attaching tags to resources, see Tagging Macie resources. For an example of an identity-based policy that controls access to a resource based on tags, see Identity-based policy examples for Macie.

Using temporary credentials with Macie

Supports temporary credentials: Yes

Temporary credentials provide short-term access to AWS resources and are automatically created when you use federation or switch roles. AWS recommends that you dynamically generate temporary credentials instead of using long-term access keys. For more information, see Temporary security credentials in IAM and AWS services that work with IAM in the IAM User Guide.

Amazon Macie supports the use of temporary credentials.

Forward access sessions for Macie

Supports forward access sessions (FAS): Yes

Forward access sessions (FAS) use the permissions of the principal calling an AWS service, combined with the requesting AWS service to make requests to downstream services. For policy details when making FAS requests, see Forward access sessions.

Amazon Macie makes FAS requests to downstream AWS services when you perform the following tasks:

For other tasks, Macie uses a service-linked role to perform actions on your behalf. For details about this role, see Using service-linked roles for Macie.

Service roles for Macie

Supports service roles: No

A service role is an IAM role that a service assumes to perform actions on your behalf. An IAM administrator can create, modify, and delete a service role from within IAM. For more information, see Create a role to delegate permissions to an AWS service in the IAM User Guide.

Amazon Macie doesn't assume or use service roles. To perform actions on your behalf, Macie primarily uses a service-linked role. For details about this role, see Using service-linked roles for Macie.

Service-linked roles for Macie

Supports service-linked roles: Yes

A service-linked role is a type of service role that is linked to an AWS service. The service can assume the role to perform an action on your behalf. Service-linked roles appear in your AWS account and are owned by the service. An IAM administrator can view, but not edit the permissions for service-linked roles.

Amazon Macie uses a service-linked role to perform actions on your behalf. For details about this role, see Using service-linked roles for Macie.