Ensure IAM instance roles are used for AWS resource access from instances
Instance roles provide temporary credentials that are automatically rotated by AWS. This is more secure than embedding long-term access keys in EC2 instances or applications.
Security Impact
Hard-coded access keys are difficult to rotate, easily leaked through code, and don't expire automatically.
How to Remediate
Create IAM roles with required permissions and attach them to EC2 instances via instance profiles. Remove any hard-coded access keys from instances.
Affected Resources
Compliance Frameworks
How TigerGate Helps
TigerGate continuously monitors your AWS environment to detect and alert on this misconfiguration. Here's what our platform does for this specific check:
- Continuous Scanning
Automatically scans all Identity and Access Management (IAM) resources across your AWS accounts every hour
- Instant Alerts
Get notified via Slack, email, or webhooks when this misconfiguration is detected
- One-Click Remediation
Fix this issue directly from the TigerGate dashboard with our guided remediation
- Compliance Evidence
Automatically collect audit evidence for CIS AWS v1.5.0, CIS AWS v2.0, SOC 2 compliance
- Drift Detection
Get alerted if this configuration drifts back to an insecure state after remediation
Check Details
- Check ID
- aws-iam-18
- Service
- Identity and Access Management (IAM)
- Category
- Instance Access
- Severity
- MEDIUM
- CIS Benchmark
- 1.18
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