How Security Hub works with IAM

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

For a high-level view of how Security Hub 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 Security Hub

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.

Security Hub supports identity-based policies. For more information, see Identity-based policy examples for AWS Security Hub.

Resource-based policies for Security Hub

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.

Security Hub does not support resource-based policies. You can't attach an IAM policy directly to a Security Hub resource.

Policy actions for Security Hub

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 in Security Hub use the following prefix before the action:

securityhub:

For example, to grant a user permission to enable Security Hub, which is an action that corresponds to the EnableSecurityHub operation of the Security Hub API, include the securityhub:EnableSecurityHub action in their policy. Policy statements must include either an Action or NotAction element. Security Hub defines its own set of actions that describe tasks that you can perform with this service.

"Action": "securityhub:EnableSecurityHub"

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

"Action": [
      "securityhub:EnableSecurityHub",
      "securityhub:BatchEnableStandards"

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

"Action": "securityhub:Get*"

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.

The user must have access to the DescribeStandardsControl operation in order to have access to BatchGetSecurityControls, BatchGetStandardsControlAssociations, and ListStandardsControlAssociations.

The user must have access to the UpdateStandardsControls operation in order to have access to BatchUpdateStandardsControlAssociations, and UpdateSecurityControl.

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

Policy resources for Security Hub

Supports policy resources: No

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": "*"

Security Hub defines the following resource types:

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

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

Policy condition keys for Security Hub

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

Access control lists (ACLs) in Security Hub

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.

Security Hub doesn't support ACLs, which means you can't attach an ACL to a Security Hub resource.

Attribute-based access control (ABAC) with Security Hub

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 Security Hub resources. You can also control access to resources by providing tag information in the Condition element of a policy.

For information about tagging Security Hub resources, see Tagging Security Hub resources. For an example of an identity-based policy that controls access to a resource based on tags, see Identity-based policy examples for AWS Security Hub.

Using temporary credentials with Security Hub

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.

You can use temporary credentials to sign in with federation, assume an IAM role, or to assume a cross-account role. You obtain temporary security credentials by calling AWS STS API operations such as AssumeRole or GetFederationToken.

Security Hub supports the use of temporary credentials.

Forward access sessions for Security Hub

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.

For example, Security Hub makes FAS requests to downstream AWS services when you integrate Security Hub with AWS Organizations and when you designate the delegated Security Hub administrator account for an organization in Organizations.

For other tasks, Security Hub uses a service-linked role to perform actions on your behalf. For details about this role, see Service-linked roles for AWS Security Hub.

Service roles for Security Hub

Security Hub doesn't assume or use service roles. To perform actions on your behalf, Security Hub uses a service-linked role. For details about this role, see Service-linked roles for AWS Security Hub.

Service-linked roles for Security Hub

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.

Security Hub uses a service-linked role to perform actions on your behalf. For details about this role, see Service-linked roles for AWS Security Hub.