Intruduction AWS IAM Interview Question & Answer

Amazon’s AWS is a cloud computing platform that makes use of services like EC2, S3, IAM and a few more to help businesses with their applications in the cloud. 

AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) is a web service provided by Amazon which allows a user to go about their AWS resources, securely without any threats. Therefore, it is evident that it is an exceedingly crucial service in Amazon and to make sure that you get hired by giving an impactful interview, we have listed some frequently asked AWS IAM interview questions in AWS interviews. These questions won’t be as hard with proper AWS IAM training and after that, you can also goal towards securing your AWS Certification.

AWS IAM INTERVIEW QUESTIONS:

Ques. What are the key features of AWS IAM?

Ans.

  • Shared access to the AWS account is the primary feature of this service, it helps in creating individual usernames and passcodes.
  • Granular permissions make sure that a user can restrict the actions of other users’ requests.
  • Multi Factor authentication (MFA) is a process where the user, along with their username and password, has to provide a one time password sent to them which acts as an additional security step.
  • Password policy is another feature of AWS IAM which allows a user to change their password or even rotate it. A user is also given the authority to create their rules for optimum security.

This is one of the most commonly used AWS IAM interview questions so you should not forget the features of it.

Ques. What are AWS Users?

Ans. An AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) user is an entity that a user builds in AWS that consists of a name and credentials.

Ques. Can you define AWS Groups?

Ans. An AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) group can be made up of many users and one can grant permissions to this group which applies to all the users of that group.

Ques. What are AWS Roles?

Ans. IAM role is similar to an IAM user, here roles are given to the users to grant access to AWS resources.

Ques. What are the best practices one can follow while creating IAM users?

Ans. You can answer this AWS IAM interview question by listing the practices like using a strong password, enabling multi factor authentication, implementing the principle of least privilege, frequent rotation of access keys, monitoring and reviewing IAM activity, enabling AWS cloudtrail, separation of duties, and more.

Ques. What are the two types of IAM policies?

Ans. Identity based policies and Resource based policies are the two types of IAM policies which are involved in defining permissions and access controls for AWS resources.

Ques. What is the structure of the IAM policy?

Ans. This contains the elements like version, statements, sid, effect, principal, action, resource and condition.

Ques. How is authentication controlled in IAM service?

Ans. One can easily manage and control the users, access keys, and passwords. 

Ques. What are some of the security credentials in AWS IAM?

Ans.

  • User ID and password
  • Email address and password 
  • Access keys
  • Key pair
  • Multi-Factor authentication

Ques. What is the IAM hierarchy of privileges?

Ans.

  • Root user
  • IAM user
  • User with temporary credentials 

Ques. Why is IAM important?

Ans.

  • IAM provides secure access to AWS resources. It also allows a user to apply permissions wherever they feel is necessary.
  • It also provides compliance with regulatory requirements.
  • IAM also grants a user a cost control by only giving access to the resources that a user needs so that they do not have to buy all the unnecessary resources.
  • There is also a centralized management provided by IAM which makes it easy to maintain access controls.

Ques. How does a user create an IAM group in AWS?

Ans. First the user needs to go to the IAM dashboard and click on ‘groups’ and then ‘create new group’. Then the user must put a name and click ‘next step’. Here you can grant permissions and policies than just select ‘create group’ and later you can add your IAM users to this group. You will be learning all this in your AWS IAM training!

Ques. How can a user audit IAM user activity?

Ans. When you are asked this question in your AWS IAM interview, you can simply tell them the following steps: first the user needs to enable AWS CloudTrail and then create a trail. Then the user can analyze logs and set up alerts!

Ques. What are some things to keep in mind while ensuring compliance with industry standards and regulations?

Ans. After getting your AWS IAM certification,if this is one of the AWS IAM interview questions, you can answer this easily by letting them know some examples like enforcing strong password policies, using IAM roles to limit access, monitoring user activity, enabling multi factor authentication.