Automated IAM Policy ID Management via Data Structure Traversal
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Solution Overview
Problem
Identity Access Management (IAM) systems face challenges in managing numerous policies across a cloud environment, leading to slow and inaccurate updates, and are vulnerable to cyber-attacks following a security compromise.
Innovation Solution
Implementing automated search, action, and confirm functions to manage IDs in IAM/resource policies, which involves traversing data structures to identify and modify policies, performing actions such as delete, add, or modify, and ensuring confirmation of changes across all relevant policies.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If manual methods are used to update IAM policies in a cloud environment with numerous resources, users, and roles, then the system can maintain security and proper authorization, but the update process becomes slow and inaccurate
Solution Approach 1:
The system automatically traverses data structures to identify all policies containing a target ID and performs the requested action without human intervention. The automated search and modification process eliminates manual errors and significantly speeds up policy updates across numerous IAM resources, users, and roles.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces manual mechanical processes with automated computational systems. Instead of manually searching through and updating policies, the system uses automated data structure traversal and programmatic modification to identify and update all relevant policies, improving both speed and accuracy.
2Productivity
If automated search and action functions are implemented to update IAM policies, then update speed and accuracy improve, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements a universal automated framework that handles multiple IAM policy update operations through a single unified process. The same data structure traversal and modification mechanism works for updating policies across numerous resources, users, and roles, reducing the need for separate manual processes for each scenario.
3Reliability
If all policies are manually reviewed and updated when a security compromise occurs, then security can be regained, but the process is time-consuming and vulnerable to further attacks
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary automated identification of all policies containing a target ID before security restoration is needed. When a security compromise occurs, the pre-established automated framework can immediately traverse data structures and update all affected policies, significantly reducing the time to regain security compared to manual processes.
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosed are methods, systems, and non-transitory computer-readable medium for managing IDs in identity access management (IAM)/resource policies. For instance, the method may include obtaining a request regarding a target identification in a set of IAM/resource policies, the request including an action request; pulling the set of IAM/resource policies from a service; for each policy of the set of IAM/resource policies, traversing a data structure of the policy to return keypath(s) that include the target identification; and modifying each policy that includes the target identification by performing the action request using the keypath(s).