How Amazon 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.

IAM features you can use with Amazon Macie
IAM feature	Macie support
Identity-based policies	Yes
Resource-based policies	No
Policy actions	Yes
Policy resources	Yes
Policy condition keys	Yes
Access control lists (ACLs)	No
Attribute-based access control (ABAC) – tags in policies	Yes
Temporary credentials	Yes
Forward access sessions (FAS)	Yes
Service roles	No
Service-linked roles	Yes

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 Amazon 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 Creating IAM 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. You can't specify the principal in an identity-based policy because it applies to the user or role to which it is attached. 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.

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

Resource-based policies within Amazon 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. Adding a cross-account principal to a resource-based policy is only half of establishing the trust relationship. When the principal and the resource are in different AWS accounts, an IAM administrator in the trusted account must also grant the principal entity (user or role) permission to access the resource. They grant permission by attaching an identity-based policy to the entity. However, if a resource-based policy grants access to a principal in the same account, no additional identity-based policy is required. For more information, see How IAM roles differ from resource-based policies in the IAM User Guide.

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 Amazon 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. Policy actions usually have the same name as the associated AWS API operation. There are some exceptions, such as permission-only actions that don't have a matching API operation. There are also some operations that require multiple actions in a policy. These additional actions are called dependent actions.

Include actions in a policy to grant permissions to perform the associated operation.

Policy actions for 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 Amazon Macie.

Policy resources for Amazon 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. Statements must include either a Resource or a NotResource element. As a best practice, specify a resource using its Amazon Resource Name (ARN). You can do this for actions that support a specific resource type, known as resource-level permissions.

For actions that don't support resource-level permissions, such as listing operations, use a wildcard (*) to indicate that the statement applies to all resources.

"Resource": "*"

Macie defines the following resource types:

• Allow list

• Custom data identifier

• Filter or suppression rule, also referred to as a findings filter

• Member account

• Sensitive data discovery job, also referred to as a classification job

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 Amazon Macie.

Policy condition keys for Amazon 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 (or Condition block) lets you specify conditions in which a statement is in effect. The Condition element is optional. 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.

If you specify multiple Condition elements in a statement, or multiple keys in a single Condition element, AWS evaluates them using a logical AND operation. If you specify multiple values for a single condition key, AWS evaluates the condition using a logical OR operation. All of the conditions must be met before the statement's permissions are granted.

You can also use placeholder variables when you specify conditions. For example, you can grant an IAM user permission to access a resource only if it is tagged with their IAM user name. For more information, see IAM policy elements: variables and tags in the IAM User Guide.

AWS supports global condition keys and service-specific condition keys. To see all AWS global condition keys, see AWS global condition context keys in the IAM User Guide.

For a list of 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 Amazon Macie.

Access control lists (ACLs) in Amazon 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.

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 Amazon Macie

Supports ABAC (tags in policies)

Yes

Attribute-based access control (ABAC) is an authorization strategy that defines permissions based on attributes. In AWS, these attributes are called tags. You can attach tags to IAM entities (users or roles) and to many AWS resources. Tagging entities and resources is the first step of ABAC. Then you design ABAC policies to allow operations when the principal's tag matches the tag on the resource that they are trying to access.

ABAC is helpful in environments that are growing rapidly and helps with situations where policy management becomes cumbersome.

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 What is ABAC? 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 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 tagging Macie resources, see Tagging Amazon 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 Amazon Macie.

Using temporary credentials with Amazon Macie

Supports temporary credentials

Yes

Some AWS services don't work when you sign in using temporary credentials. For additional information, including which AWS services work with temporary credentials, see AWS services that work with IAM in the IAM User Guide.

You are using temporary credentials if you sign in to the AWS Management Console using any method except a user name and password. For example, when you access AWS using your company's single sign-on (SSO) link, that process automatically creates temporary credentials. You also automatically create temporary credentials when you sign in to the console as a user and then switch roles. For more information about switching roles, see Switching to a role (console) in the IAM User Guide.

You can manually create temporary credentials using the AWS CLI or AWS API. You can then use those temporary credentials to access AWS. AWS recommends that you dynamically generate temporary credentials instead of using long-term access keys. For more information, see Temporary security credentials in IAM.

Macie supports the use of temporary credentials.

Forward access sessions for Amazon Macie

Supports forward access sessions (FAS)

Yes

When you use an IAM user or role to perform actions in AWS, you are considered a principal. When you use some services, you might perform an action that then initiates another action in a different service. FAS uses the permissions of the principal calling an AWS service, combined with the requesting AWS service to make requests to downstream services. FAS requests are only made when a service receives a request that requires interactions with other AWS services or resources to complete. In this case, you must have permissions to perform both actions. For policy details when making FAS requests, see Forward access sessions.

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

• Create or update Macie settings for an allow list that's stored in an S3 bucket.

• Check the status of an allow list that's stored in an S3 bucket.

• Retrieve sensitive data samples from an affected S3 object by using IAM user credentials.

• Encrypt sensitive data samples that are retrieved using IAM user credentials or an IAM role.

• Enable Macie to integrate with AWS Organizations.

• Designate the delegated Macie administrator account for an organization in AWS Organizations.

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

Service roles for Amazon 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 Creating a role to delegate permissions to an AWS service in the IAM User Guide.

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 Service-linked roles for Amazon Macie.

Service-linked roles for Amazon 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.

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