Least Privilege in Someone Else's Cloud: Securing Vendor Access for BYOC

The guide explores the complexities and best practices of granting secure, auditable, and time-bound access to a vendor within a customer's cloud environment, particularly in Bring-Your-Own-Cloud (BYOC) deployments. It highlights the risks associated with long-lived credentials and advocates for the use of federated short-lived credentials to mitigate security liabilities. The document details three access models—long-lived service accounts, cross-account IAM roles, and federated short-lived credentials—ranking them by risk profile and recommending federated credentials as the optimal choice. Emphasis is placed on avoiding standing credentials to reduce security vulnerabilities, ensuring access models are auditable, and prioritizing scope and isolation in permissions. It also covers the importance of audit logging, policy management, and the rapid revocation of vendor access to maintain security integrity. The guide encourages vendors and security engineers to implement these practices to prevent breaches and ensure compliance, ultimately aiming for a secure and efficient access framework.

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