Amazon GuardDuty uses AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) service-linked roles. A service-linked role (SLR) is a unique type of IAM role that is linked directly to GuardDuty. Service-linked roles are predefined by GuardDuty and include all the permissions that GuardDuty requires to call other AWS services on your behalf.
With service-linked role, you can set up GuardDuty without adding the necessary permissions manually. GuardDuty defines the permissions of its service-linked role, and unless the permissions are defined otherwise, only GuardDuty can assume the role. The defined permissions include the trust policy and the permissions policy, and that permissions policy can't be attached to any other IAM entity.
GuardDuty supports using service-linked roles in all of the Regions where GuardDuty is available. For more information, see Regions and endpoints.
You can delete the GuardDuty service-linked role only after first disabling GuardDuty in all Regions where it is enabled. This protects your GuardDuty resources because you can't inadvertently remove permission to access them.
For information about other services that support service-linked roles, see AWS services that work with IAM in the IAM User Guide and look for the services that have Yes in the Service-Linked Role column. Choose a Yes with a link to view the service-linked role documentation for that service.
