How AWS 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.

IAM features you can use with AWS Security Hub
IAM feature	Security Hub support
Identity-based policies	Yes
Resource-based policies	No
Policy actions	Yes
Policy resources	No
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 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 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.

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

Resources

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. 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": "*"

Security Hub defines the following resource types:

• Hub

• Product

• Finding aggregator, also referred to as a cross-Region aggregator

• Automation rule

• Configuration policy

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 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 (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 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 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. 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 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 Security Hub.

Using temporary credentials with Security Hub

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.

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

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.

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 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 Security Hub.

Warning

Changing the permissions for a service role may create operational issues with your use of Security Hub. Edit service roles only when Security Hub provides guidance to do so.

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 Security Hub.