Standard Documentation

AWS IAM Security: Building the Principle of Least Privilege

Updated Jan 12, 2026•4 min read

In the cloud, Identity and Access Management (IAM) is your primary security perimeter. Providing "AdministratorAccess" to every script is a recipe for disaster. Our AWS Policy Generator helps you follow the Principle of Least Privilege.

Anatomy of an AWS Policy

Every IAM policy consists of Statements that contain:

Effect: Usually Allow, but can be Deny to explicitly block actions.
Action: The specific API calls permitted (e.g., s3:PutObject).
Resource: The ARN (Amazon Resource Name) of the specific bucket or instance.

Why Use This Tool?

Writing JSON policies manually is prone to syntax errors. Our tool allows you to select generalized access levels (Read, Write, List) and automatically maps them to the correct AWS API patterns (like Get* vs Describe*).

Common Use Cases

S3 Read-Only: Create a policy for a static site that only needs to List and Get objects from one bucket.
EC2 Lifecycle: Grant a CI/CD pipeline the ability to Start or Stop instances without giving them full EC2 control.

Secure your cloud infrastructure today with the AWS Policy Generator.