Identity-based policy examples for AWS WAF

By default, users and roles don't have permission to create or modify AWS WAF resources. They also can't perform tasks by using the AWS Management Console, AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI), or AWS API. To grant users permission to perform actions on the resources that they need, an IAM administrator can create IAM policies. The administrator can then add the IAM policies to roles, and users can assume the roles.

To learn how to create an IAM identity-based policy by using these example JSON policy documents, see Creating IAM policies in the IAM User Guide.

For details about actions and resource types defined by AWS WAF, including the format of the ARNs for each of the resource types, see Actions, resources, and condition keys for AWS WAF V2 in the Service Authorization Reference.

Policy best practices

Identity-based policies determine whether someone can create, access, or delete AWS WAF resources in your account. These actions can incur costs for your AWS account. When you create or edit identity-based policies, follow these guidelines and recommendations:

• Get started with AWS managed policies and move toward least-privilege permissions – To get started granting permissions to your users and workloads, use the AWS managed policies that grant permissions for many common use cases. They are available in your AWS account. We recommend that you reduce permissions further by defining AWS customer managed policies that are specific to your use cases. For more information, see AWS managed policies or AWS managed policies for job functions in the IAM User Guide.

• Apply least-privilege permissions – When you set permissions with IAM policies, grant only the permissions required to perform a task. You do this by defining the actions that can be taken on specific resources under specific conditions, also known as least-privilege permissions. For more information about using IAM to apply permissions, see Policies and permissions in IAM in the IAM User Guide.

• Use conditions in IAM policies to further restrict access – You can add a condition to your policies to limit access to actions and resources. For example, you can write a policy condition to specify that all requests must be sent using SSL. You can also use conditions to grant access to service actions if they are used through a specific AWS service, such as AWS CloudFormation. For more information, see IAM JSON policy elements: Condition in the IAM User Guide.

• Use IAM Access Analyzer to validate your IAM policies to ensure secure and functional permissions – IAM Access Analyzer validates new and existing policies so that the policies adhere to the IAM policy language (JSON) and IAM best practices. IAM Access Analyzer provides more than 100 policy checks and actionable recommendations to help you author secure and functional policies. For more information, see IAM Access Analyzer policy validation in the IAM User Guide.

• Require multi-factor authentication (MFA) – If you have a scenario that requires IAM users or a root user in your AWS account, turn on MFA for additional security. To require MFA when API operations are called, add MFA conditions to your policies. For more information, see Configuring MFA-protected API access in the IAM User Guide.

For more information about best practices in IAM, see Security best practices in IAM in the IAM User Guide.

Using the AWS WAF console

To access the AWS WAF console, you must have a minimum set of permissions. These permissions must allow you to list and view details about the AWS WAF resources in your AWS account. If you create an identity-based policy that is more restrictive than the minimum required permissions, the console won't function as intended for entities (users or roles) with that policy.

You don't need to allow minimum console permissions for users that are making calls only to the AWS CLI or the AWS API. Instead, allow access to only the actions that match the API operation that they're trying to perform.

To ensure that users and roles can use the AWS WAF console, also attach at least the AWS WAF AWSWAFConsoleReadOnlyAccess AWS managed policy to the entities. For information about this managed policy, see AWS managed policy: AWSWAFConsoleReadOnlyAccess. For more information about attaching a managed policy to a user, see Adding permissions to a user in the IAM User Guide.

Allow users to view their own permissions

This example shows how you might create a policy that allows IAM users to view the inline and managed policies that are attached to their user identity. This policy includes permissions to complete this action on the console or programmatically using the AWS CLI or AWS API.

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Sid": "ViewOwnUserInfo",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "iam:GetUserPolicy",
                "iam:ListGroupsForUser",
                "iam:ListAttachedUserPolicies",
                "iam:ListUserPolicies",
                "iam:GetUser"
            ],
            "Resource": ["arn:aws:iam::*:user/${aws:username}"]
        },
        {
            "Sid": "NavigateInConsole",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "iam:GetGroupPolicy",
                "iam:GetPolicyVersion",
                "iam:GetPolicy",
                "iam:ListAttachedGroupPolicies",
                "iam:ListGroupPolicies",
                "iam:ListPolicyVersions",
                "iam:ListPolicies",
                "iam:ListUsers"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        }
    ]
}

Grant read-only access to AWS WAF, CloudFront, and CloudWatch

The following policy grants users read-only access to AWS WAF resources, to Amazon CloudFront web distributions, and to Amazon CloudWatch metrics. It's useful for users who need permission to view the settings in AWS WAF conditions, rules, and web ACLs to see which distribution is associated with a web ACL, and to monitor metrics and a sample of requests in CloudWatch. These users can't create, update, or delete AWS WAF resources.

{
   "Version":"2012-10-17",
   "Statement": [
      {
         "Action": [
            "wafv2:Get*",
            "wafv2:List*",
            "cloudfront:GetDistribution",
            "cloudfront:GetDistributionConfig",
            "cloudfront:ListDistributions",
            "cloudfront:ListDistributionsByWebACLId",
            "cloudwatch:ListMetrics",
            "cloudwatch:GetMetricStatistics",
            "ec2:DescribeRegions"
         ],
         "Effect": "Allow",
         "Resource": "*"
      }
   ]
}

Grant full access to AWS WAF, CloudFront, and CloudWatch

The following policy lets users perform any AWS WAF operation, perform any operation on CloudFront web distributions, and monitor metrics and a sample of requests in CloudWatch. It's useful for users who are AWS WAF administrators.

{
   "Version": "2012-10-17",
   "Statement": [
      {
         "Action": [
            "wafv2:*",
            "cloudfront:CreateDistribution",
            "cloudfront:GetDistribution",
            "cloudfront:GetDistributionConfig",
            "cloudfront:UpdateDistribution",
            "cloudfront:ListDistributions",
            "cloudfront:ListDistributionsByWebACLId",
            "cloudfront:DeleteDistribution",
            "cloudwatch:ListMetrics",
            "cloudwatch:GetMetricStatistics",
            "ec2:DescribeRegions"
         ],
         "Effect": "Allow",
         "Resource": "*"
      }
   ]
}

We strongly recommend that you configure multi-factor authentication (MFA) for users who have administrative permissions. For more information, see Using Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) Devices with AWS in the IAM User Guide.

Grant access to a single AWS account

This policy grants the following permissions to the account 444455556666:

• Full access to all AWS WAF operations and resources.

• Read and update access to all CloudFront distributions, which allows you to associate web ACLs and CloudFront distributions.

• Read access to all CloudWatch metrics and metric statistics, so that you can view CloudWatch data and a sample of requests in the AWS WAF console.

{
   "Version": "2012-10-17",
   "Statement": [
      {
         "Effect": "Allow",
         "Action": [
            "wafv2:*"
         ],
         "Resource": [
            "arn:aws:wafv2:us-east-1:444455556666:*"
         ]
      },
      {
         "Effect": "Allow",
         "Action": [
            "cloudfront:GetDistribution",
            "cloudfront:GetDistributionConfig",
            "cloudfront:ListDistributions",
            "cloudfront:ListDistributionsByWebACLId",
            "cloudfront:UpdateDistribution",
            "cloudwatch:ListMetrics",
            "cloudwatch:GetMetricStatistics",
            "ec2:DescribeRegions"
         ],
         "Resource": [
            "*"
         ]
      }
   ]
}

Grant access to a single web ACL

The following policy lets users perform any AWS WAF operation through the console on a specific web ACL in the account 444455556666.

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "wafv2:*"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:wafv2:us-east-1:444455556666:regional/webacl/test123/112233d7c-86b2-458b-af83-51c51example",
            ]
        },
        {
            "Sid": "consoleAccess",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "wafv2:ListWebACLs",
                "ec2:DescribeRegions"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "*"
            ]
        }
    ]
}

Grant CLI access to a web ACL and rule group

The following policy lets users perform any AWS WAF operation through the CLI on a specific web ACL and a specific rule group in the account 444455556666.

{
   "Version": "2012-10-17",
   "Statement": [
      {
         "Effect": "Allow",
         "Action": [
            "wafv2:*"
         ],
         "Resource": [
        "arn:aws:wafv2:us-east-1:444455556666:regional/webacl/test123/112233d7c-86b2-458b-af83-51c51example",
        "arn:aws:wafv2:us-east-1:444455556666:regional/rulegroup/test123rulegroup/555555555-6666-1234-abcd-00d11example"
         ]
      }
   ]
}

The following policy lets users perform any AWS WAF operation through the console on a specific web ACL in the account 444455556666.

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "wafv2:*"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:wafv2:us-east-1:444455556666:regional/webacl/test123/112233d7c-86b2-458b-af83-51c51example",
            ]
        },
        {
            "Sid": "consoleAccess",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "wafv2:ListWebACLs",
                "ec2:DescribeRegions"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "*"
            ]
        }
    ]
}