Designating a Security Hub administrator account

The delegated AWS Security Hub administrator account manages Security Hub membership for an organization.

The organization management account designates the Security Hub administrator account for the organization. The organization management account can designate any account in the organization. However, Security Hub recommends that the organization management account does not designate itself as the administrator account. The users who have access to the organization management account to manage billing are likely to be different from the users who need access to Security Hub for security management.

If you have an administrator account in place from the manual invitation process, then Security Hub recommends that you designate that account as the Security Hub administrator account for your organization. Member accounts can only be associated with a single administrator account. The administrator account for the organization cannot enable member accounts that belong to another administrator account.

The delegated administrator account must be the same in each Region. However, the organization management account must designate that same Security Hub administrator account separately in each Region.

The organization management account can also remove the current delegated Security Hub administrator account. When the organization management account uses the console to remove the administrator account in one Region, it is automatically removed in all Regions. The Security Hub API only removes the administrator account from the Region where the API call or command is issued. To remove the administrator account from all Regions, you can use the Organizations API.

The administrator account it selects the member accounts. See Managing member accounts that belong to an organization and Managing member accounts that are not in an organization.

Remember that all Security Hub accounts must have AWS Config enabled and configured to record all resources. For details on the requirement for AWS Config, see Enabling and configuring AWS Config.

Required permissions to configure the Security Hub administrator account

To designate and remove a Security Hub administrator account, the organization management account must have permissions for the EnableOrganizationAdminAccount and DisableOrganizationAdminAccount actions in Security Hub. The organization management account must also have administrative permissions for Organizations.

To grant all of the required permissions, attach the following Security Hub managed policies to the organization management account principal:

• AWSSecurityHubFullAccess

• AWSSecurityHubOrganizationsAccess

Designating a Security Hub administrator account (console)

The organization management account can use the Security Hub console to designate the Security Hub administrator account.

The organization management account does not have to enable Security Hub in order to manage the Security Hub administrator account.

However, if the organization management account chooses itself as the Security Hub administrator account, it must have Security Hub enabled. If it does not already have Security Hub enabled, it must enable Security Hub manually. Security Hub cannot be enabled automatically for the organization management account.

To designate a Security Hub administrator account from the Welcome to Security Hub page

1. Open the AWS Security Hub console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/securityhub/.

2. Choose Go to Security Hub.

3. If a Security Hub administrator account is currently assigned, then you must remove the current account before you can designate a new account.

   To remove the current account, under Delegated Administrator, choose Remove.

4. Under Delegated Administrator, enter the account ID of the account to designate as the Security Hub administrator account.

   You must designate the same Security Hub administrator account in all Regions. If you designate an account that is different from the account designated in other Regions, Security Hub returns an error.

5. Choose Delegate.

If you have Security Hub enabled, then you can also designate the Security Hub administrator account from the Settings page.

To designate a Security Hub administrator account from the Settings page

1. Open the AWS Security Hub console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/securityhub/.

2. In the Security Hub navigation pane, choose Settings. Then choose General.

3. If a Security Hub administrator account is currently assigned, then before you can designate a new account, you must remove the current account.

   Under Delegated Administrator, to remove the current account, choose Remove.

4. Enter the account ID of the account you want to designate as the Security Hub administrator account.

   You must designate the same Security Hub administrator account in all Regions. If you designate an account that is different from the account designated in other Regions, Security Hub returns an error.

5. Choose Delegate.

Designating a Security Hub administrator account (Security Hub API, AWS CLI)

To designate the Security Hub administrator account, you can use an API call or the AWS Command Line Interface. You must use the organization management account credentials.

To designate the Security Hub administrator account (Security Hub API, AWS CLI)

• Security Hub API – Use the EnableOrganizationAdminAccount operation. You must provide the AWS account ID of the Security Hub administrator account.

• AWS CLI – At the command line, run the enable-organization-admin-account command.

  aws securityhub enable-organization-admin-account --admin-account-id <admin account ID>

  Example

  aws securityhub enable-organization-admin-account --admin-account-id 777788889999

Removing a Security Hub administrator account (console)

The organization management account can remove the current Security Hub administrator account. When the organization management account uses the console to remove the Security Hub administrator account, the Security Hub administrator account is removed in all Regions.

When the Security Hub administrator account is removed, the member accounts are disassociated from the removed Security Hub administrator account.

The enabled member accounts still have Security Hub enabled. They become standalone accounts until a new Security Hub administrator enables them as member accounts.

If the organization management account is not an enabled account in Security Hub, then use the option on the Welcome to Security Hub page.

To remove the Security Hub administrator account from the Welcome to Security Hub page

1. Open the AWS Security Hub console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/securityhub/.

2. Choose Go to Security Hub.

3. Under Delegated Administrator, choose Remove.

If the organization management account is an enabled account in Security Hub, then use the option on the General tab of the Settings page.

To remove the Security Hub administrator account from the Settings page

1. Open the AWS Security Hub console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/securityhub/.

2. In the Security Hub navigation pane, choose Settings. Then choose General.

3. Under Delegated Administrator, choose Remove.

Removing a Security Hub administrator account (Security Hub API, AWS CLI)

To remove the Security Hub administrator account, you can use an API call or the AWS Command Line Interface. You must use the organization management account credentials.

When you use the API or AWS CLI to remove the Security Hub administrator account, it is only removed in the Region where the API call or command was issued.

To remove the Security Hub administrator account (Security Hub API, AWS CLI)

• Security Hub API – Use the DisableOrganizationAdminAccount operation. You must provide the account ID of the Security Hub administrator account.

• AWS CLI – At the command line, run the disable-organization-admin-account command.

  aws securityhub disable-organization-admin-account --admin-account-id <admin account ID>

  Example

  aws securityhub disable-organization-admin-account --admin-account-id 777788889999

Removing a Security Hub administrator account (Organizations API, AWS CLI)

When you use the Security Hub API to remove the Security Hub administrator account, it is only removed in the Region where the API call or command was issued.

The Organizations API allows you to remove the Security Hub administrator account from all Regions at once.

To remove the Security Hub administrator account (Organizations API, AWS CLI)

• Organizations API – Use the DeregisterDelegatedAdministrator operation. You must provide the account ID of the Security Hub administrator account, and the service principal for Security Hub, which is securityhub.amazonaws.com.

• AWS CLI – At the command line, run the deregister-delegated-administrator command.

  aws organizations deregister-delegated-administrator --account-id <admin account ID> --service-principal <Security Hub service principal>

  Example

  aws organizations deregister-delegated-administrator --account-id 777788889999 --service-principal securityhub.amazonaws.com