IAM policy grants full permissions

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Metadata

Id: f62aa827-4ade-4dc4-89e4-1433d384a368

Cloud Provider: AWS

Platform: CloudFormation

Severity: High

Category: Access Control

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Description

IAM policies that allow both Action: "*" and Resource: "*" grant unrestricted access, posing risks of privilege escalation and data exfiltration. This rule flags AWS::IAM::Policy resources in CloudFormation templates when a PolicyDocument.Statement has Effect: "Allow" and both Action and Resource are set to "*", including when they appear in arrays. To enforce least privilege, restrict permissions to specific actions and ARNs, or apply conditions, roles, and permission boundaries.

Secure example:

MyPolicy:
  Type: AWS::IAM::Policy
  Properties:
    PolicyName: ReadS3BucketPolicy
    PolicyDocument:
      Version: "2012-10-17"
      Statement:
        - Effect: Allow
          Action:
            - s3:GetObject
          Resource: arn:aws:s3:::my-bucket/*

Compliant Code Examples

AWSTemplateFormatVersion: "2010-09-09"
Description: A sample template
Resources:
  adminPolicy:
    Type: AWS::IAM::Policy
    Properties:
      PolicyName: mygrouppolicy
      PolicyDocument:
        Version: '2012-10-17'
        Statement:
        - Effect: Allow
          Action: ["*"]
          Resource: arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AdministratorAccess
      Groups:
      - myexistinggroup1
      - !Ref mygroup

{
  "AWSTemplateFormatVersion": "2010-09-09",
  "Description": "A sample template",
  "Resources": {
    "adminPolicy": {
      "Type": "AWS::IAM::Policy",
      "Properties": {
        "PolicyName": "mygrouppolicy",
        "PolicyDocument": {
          "Version": "2012-10-17",
          "Statement": [
            {
              "Resource": "arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AdministratorAccess",
              "Effect": "Allow",
              "Action": [
                "*"
              ]
            }
          ]
        },
        "Groups": [
          "myexistinggroup1",
          "mygroup"
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}

AWSTemplateFormatVersion: "2010-09-09"
Description: A sample template
Resources:
  adminPolicy:
    Type: AWS::IAM::Policy
    Properties:
      PolicyName: mygrouppolicy
      PolicyDocument:
        Version: '2012-10-17'
        Statement:
        - Effect: Allow
          Action: 'ec2messages:GetEndpoint'
          Resource: ['*']
      Groups:
      - myexistinggroup1
      - !Ref mygroup

Non-Compliant Code Examples

{
  "AWSTemplateFormatVersion": "2010-09-09",
  "Description": "A sample template",
  "Resources": {
    "mypolicy2": {
      "Type": "AWS::IAM::Policy",
      "Properties": {
        "PolicyName": "mygrouppolicy",
        "PolicyDocument": {
          "Statement": [
            {
              "Effect": "Allow",
              "Action": "*",
              "Resource": "*"
            }
          ],
          "Version": "2012-10-17"
        },
        "Groups": [
          "myexistinggroup1",
          "mygroup"
        ]
      }
    },
    "mypolicy": {
      "Type": "AWS::IAM::Policy",
      "Properties": {
        "PolicyName": "mygrouppolicy",
        "PolicyDocument": {
          "Version": "2012-10-17",
          "Statement": [
            {
              "Effect": "Allow",
              "Action": [
                "*"
              ],
              "Resource": "*"
            }
          ]
        },
        "Groups": [
          "myexistinggroup1",
          "mygroup"
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}

AWSTemplateFormatVersion: "2010-09-09"
Description: A sample template
Resources:
  mypolicy:
    Type: AWS::IAM::Policy
    Properties:
      PolicyName: mygrouppolicy
      PolicyDocument:
        Version: '2012-10-17'
        Statement:
        - Effect: Allow
          Action: ["*"]
          Resource: "*"
      Groups:
      - myexistinggroup1
      - !Ref mygroup
  mypolicy2:
    Type: AWS::IAM::Policy
    Properties:
      PolicyName: mygrouppolicy
      PolicyDocument:
        Version: '2012-10-17'
        Statement:
        - Effect: Allow
          Action: "*"
          Resource: "*"
      Groups:
      - myexistinggroup1
      - !Ref mygroup