Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills/skills/implementing-aws-iam-permission-boundaries/references/workflows.md

AWS IAM Permission Boundaries - Workflows

Boundary Policy Creation Workflow

1. Security team identifies allowed services for developer workloads
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2. Draft permission boundary policy (JSON)
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3. Peer review by second security engineer
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4. Test in sandbox account:
       ├── Create test role with boundary
       ├── Verify allowed actions succeed
       ├── Verify blocked actions are denied
       └── Verify boundary cannot be self-modified
       │
5. Commit policy to version control (IaC repository)
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6. Deploy via CI/CD pipeline (Terraform/CloudFormation)
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7. Attach boundary to all developer-created roles

Developer Role Creation Workflow (with Boundary)

Developer wants to create a new IAM role
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├── Developer writes role policy (only app-* prefixed)
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├── Developer creates role with --permissions-boundary flag
│       │
│       └── If boundary not attached → API returns AccessDenied
│
├── AWS IAM validates:
│   ├── Role name matches required prefix (app-*)
│   ├── Permission boundary ARN matches required boundary
│   └── Developer has iam:CreateRole with boundary condition
│
├── Role created successfully with boundary attached
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└── Effective permissions = identity policy ∩ boundary policy

Privilege Escalation Prevention Workflow

Attacker attempts to escalate privileges:

Attempt 1: Create role without boundary
    → Denied by developer policy (condition requires boundary)

Attempt 2: Modify the boundary policy itself
    → Denied by boundary's own deny statements

Attempt 3: Remove boundary from existing role
    → Denied by boundary deny on DeleteRolePermissionsBoundary

Attempt 4: Create policy granting iam:* access
    → Policy can only grant actions within boundary intersection

Attempt 5: Assume a role without boundary
    → Developer can only create roles with boundary condition

All escalation paths blocked ✓

Boundary Audit Workflow

Monthly audit:
    │
    ├── List all IAM roles in account
    │
    ├── Check each role for boundary attachment:
    │   ├── Has boundary → Verify correct boundary ARN
    │   └── No boundary → Flag for remediation
    │
    ├── Review boundary policy changes (CloudTrail)
    │
    ├── Check for new IAM actions added to AWS services
    │   └── Update boundary if new actions should be restricted
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    └── Generate compliance report