All news with #iam tag

🔐 AWS has expanded its Service Reference Information to map SDK operations to the specific IAM action(s) required to call them. This enables teams to answer questions such as “Which permission is needed for this API operation?” and to retrieve authoritative answers programmatically. You can integrate the data into policy management and automation pipelines to reduce manual effort and keep policies aligned with service updates. The capability is provided at no additional cost.

🔒 ReliaQuest's Q3 2025 telemetry found identity-related weaknesses were responsible for 44% of true‑positive cloud alerts, including excessive permissions, misconfigured roles and credential abuse. The report warns credentials and cloud keys often appear on crime markets — sometimes for as little as $2 — while 99% of cloud identities are reportedly over‑privileged, enabling stealthy access. It also highlights how rapid DevOps deployments can replicate legacy vulnerabilities and urges adoption of short‑lived credentials, strict least‑privilege controls and CI/CD security automation.

🔔 AWS has simplified pricing for Amazon Cognito machine-to-machine (M2M) authentication by removing the M2M app client price dimension. Customers will now be charged only for successful M2M token requests per month instead of both registered app clients and token requests. The change is effective immediately across all supported Cognito regions and is automatic, requiring no customer action. This reduces the cost to build and scale M2M integrations.

🔒 In January 2024, Russian attackers bypassed layered defenses at Microsoft, underscoring that passwords remain a primary attack vector in complex IT environments. The article identifies frequent failure points such as forgotten legacy accounts and predictable user patterns, and recommends adaptive controls: advanced banned password lists, nuanced rotation policies, long memorable passphrases, and risk-based authentication. It also advises a staged rollout with user education, clear KPIs, and practical self-service resets, and highlights Specops Password Policy as a tool that scans Active Directory against billions of compromised passwords.

🔐 Aembit today announced Aembit Identity and Access Management (IAM) for Agentic AI, introducing Blended Identity and the MCP Identity Gateway to assign cryptographically verified identities and ephemeral credentials to AI agents. The solution extends the Aembit Workload IAM Platform to enforce runtime policies, apply least-privilege access, and maintain centralized audit trails for agent and human actions. Designed for cloud, on‑premises, and SaaS environments, it records every access decision and preserves attribution across autonomous and human-driven workflows.

🔁 AWS announced that Amazon VPC IP Address Manager (IPAM) can now automate prefix list updates using a prefix list resolver (PLR). Administrators can define business rules in IPAM to synchronize prefix lists with IP address ranges from VPCs, subnets, and IPAM pools, and reference those lists in route tables and security groups. This automation removes the need for manual updates and reduces operational overhead. The feature is available in all AWS Regions where IPAM is supported, including AWS China and AWS GovCloud (US).

🔐 Autonomous AI agents are creating a new class of non-human identities that traditional, human-centric security models struggle to govern. These agents can persist beyond intended lifecycles, hold excessive permissions, and perform actions across systems without clear ownership, increasing risks like privilege escalation and large-scale data exfiltration. Security teams must adopt identity-first controls—unique managed identities, strict scoping, lifecycle management, and continuous auditing—to regain visibility and enforce least privilege.

🔒 BeyondTrust's 2026 predictions argue that the next major breaches will stem from unmanaged identity debt rather than simple phishing. The report highlights three identity-driven threats: agentic AI acting as privileged deputies vulnerable to prompt manipulation, automated "account poisoning" in financial systems, and long-dormant "ghost" identities surfacing in legacy IAM. The authors recommend an identity-first posture with strict least-privilege, context-aware controls, real-time auditing, and stronger identity governance.

🔑 Identity is becoming the new perimeter as organizations accelerate the move to Zero Trust, making robust Identity & Access Management essential for secure access and continuity. This roundup examines leading IAM vendors and highlights capabilities in IGA, PAM, IDaaS, CIEM and risk-based authentication. Profiles cover strengths, pricing and integration trade-offs for vendors including CyberArk, Okta, Microsoft Entra ID, SailPoint, Avatier and BeyondTrust to help CISOs match products to requirements.

🔍 The Unit 42 2025 Incident Response analysis explains that attackers exploit complexity, visibility gaps and excessive trust to succeed against organizations of all sizes. The report notes almost a third of incidents were cloud-related, IAM failures appeared in 41% of cases and attackers often moved within an hour, causing outsized disruption and cost. The recommended response is to consolidate telemetry into an integrated platform like Cortex, extend protection into cloud with Cortex Cloud, secure browser activity with Prisma Browser, and engage Unit 42 for advisory and retainer services.

🔁 AWS Transfer Family now lets administrators change a server's identity provider (IdP) type without service interruption. This update allows dynamic switching among service-managed, Active Directory, and custom IdP authentication for SFTP, FTPS, and FTP servers, enabling zero-downtime migrations and faster compliance adaptation. The capability is available in all AWS Regions where Transfer Family operates.

🔐 Self-service password reset (SSPR) can significantly cut help desk costs and reduce downtime by letting users securely change forgotten or expired credentials without contacting support. Industry research cited in the article highlights that password-related calls are common and expensive — Gartner and Forrester figures are referenced and a Specops analysis reports average savings per user. The piece outlines security best practices including tiered risk controls, MFA, enrollment hygiene, and detection measures like rate limiting and location checks. It describes Specops uReset capabilities for Entra ID and Active Directory, automated enrollment, reporting, and a First Day Password add-on to reduce onboarding friction.

🔐 Amazon CloudWatch Database Insights now supports tag-based access control for database-level and per-query metrics powered by RDS Performance Insights. Instance tags defined on RDS and Aurora are now automatically evaluated to authorize Performance Insights metrics, enabling IAM policies to use tag-based access conditions across logical groups of databases. This reduces manual, resource-level permission management and improves governance and security consistency. The feature is available in all AWS regions where Database Insights is offered.

⚠️ Enterprises now face a reality where autonomous AI agents run with system privileges, executing code and accessing sensitive data without human oversight. Fewer than 4 in 10 AI agents are governed by identity security policies, creating serious visibility and control gaps. Mature identity programs that use AI-driven identity controls and real-time data sync deliver stronger ROI, reduced risk, and operational efficiency. CISOs must move IAM from compliance checkbox to strategic enabler.

📞 Outsourced helpdesks are increasingly targeted by vishing and other social‑engineering campaigns. Attackers can exploit service‑desk privileges to reset passwords, disable MFA, enroll devices or elevate access, enabling lateral movement. Clients should require evidence of ISO 27001 compliance, enforce least‑privilege, strict caller authentication and continuous, scenario‑based agent training. Technical controls such as caller ID spoofing detection, deepfake audio checks and MFA on helpdesk tools — combined with MDR monitoring — help close this gap.

🔐 Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Identity centralizes and secures identities and credentials for AI agents, integrating with existing identity providers such as Amazon Cognito to avoid user migration and rework of authentication flows. It provides a token vault encrypted with AWS KMS, native AWS Secrets Manager support, and orchestrates OAuth 2.0 flows (2LO and 3LO). Declarative SDK annotations and built-in error handling simplify credential injection and refresh workflows, helping teams deploy agentic workloads securely at scale.

🤖 Organizations are rapidly adopting agentic AI that does more than suggest actions—it opens tickets, calls APIs, and even remediates incidents autonomously. These agents differ from traditional Non-Human Identities because they reason, chain steps, and adapt across systems, making attribution and oversight harder. The author from Token Security recommends named ownership, on‑behalf tracing, and conservative, time‑limited permissions to curb shadow AI risks.

🔐 Ransomware intrusions increasingly begin with compromised identities: recent analyses attribute roughly three quarters of incidents to stolen or misused credentials. Defenses must shift from infrastructure-centric controls to identity-first models like Zero Trust, combining RBAC, MFA and context-aware authentication. Adaptive, risk-based access and passwordless methods reduce friction while improving detection and auditability. Regulatory regimes such as NIS2 and DORA further mandate auditable access controls.

🔒 This post contrasts Amazon Cognito's two primary UI approaches—managed login and a fully custom UI—and outlines feature, security, and operational trade-offs to guide architects and developers. Managed login (offered as a modern branding editor or the Hosted UI classic) offloads hosting, scaling, and maintenance while providing OAuth2 flows, federation with social and OIDC/SAML providers, passwordless options, and CloudTrail action logging. A custom UI gives full control over UX, session management, localization, and supports custom authentication flows via Lambda triggers, but requires development, hosting, and operational responsibility under the AWS Shared Responsibility Model.

🔐 The 2025 State of Cloud Security Report from Fortinet and Cybersecurity Insiders highlights how accelerating cloud adoption and a widespread cybersecurity skills shortage are expanding organizational risk across SaaS, APIs, and hybrid environments. Many incidents result from human error — misconfigurations, exposed APIs, and overprivileged accounts — rather than sophisticated targeted attacks. The post recommends five practical measures, including embracing shared responsibility, enforcing MFA and least privilege, integrating security into CI/CD, automating configuration management, and monitoring SaaS and APIs, and stresses that tools must be paired with user awareness and cultural change.