AmazonSSMAutomationRole

Last Modified

Mar 31, 2026

March 31, 2026 at 08:44 AM UTC

Version

Total Versions

Created

Mar 20, 2026

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Risk

High

An unrestricted escalation path, identity administration, secret reads or the power to switch off security monitoring. Read from this policy document alone: trust policies, boundaries and SCPs in your account still decide what actually succeeds. How this is assessed

High
Can take over existing resources that run as another role
Grants every action of 3 documented escalation paths on any resource with no condition.
- cloudformation-002cloudformation:UpdateStackunrestricted
- ssm-001ssm:StartSessionunrestricted
- ssm-002ssm:SendCommandunrestricted
Use with caution: List the roles attached to the functions, instances, pipelines or notebooks it can modify: the holder effectively has them too.
High
Can read secrets
Reads Parameter Store values, SecureString included where the KMS key allows it, on any resource with no condition.
ssm:GetParameter (via ssm:*)ssm:GetParameters (via ssm:*)ssm:GetParametersByPath (via ssm:*)
Use with caution: Where the holder needs only some secrets, write your own policy scoped to their ARNs or tags, and limit decryption in the KMS key policies.
Medium
Can rewrite resource policies and sharing
Grants 3 permissions management actions across 1 service (ssm) on any resource, enough to share resources outside the account.
ssm:deleteresourcepolicyssm:modifydocumentpermissionssm:putresourcepolicy
Use with caution: Turn on IAM Access Analyzer external access findings, and keep account-level guards like S3 Block Public Access enabled.
Medium
Full ssm access on every resource
Uses ssm:* with Resource "*" and no condition, so every action AWS adds to that service later is granted too.
ssm:*
Use with caution: The grant grows every time the service does. For long-lived access, prefer a policy that lists the actions you actually need.

Policy Document

View on GitHub

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76{
  "PolicyVersion": {
    "Document": {
      "Version": "2012-10-17",
      "Statement": [
        {
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Action": [
            "lambda:InvokeFunction"
          ],
          "Resource": [
            "arn:aws:lambda:*:*:function:Automation*"
          ]
        },
        {
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Action": [
            "ec2:CreateImage",
            "ec2:CopyImage",
            "ec2:DeregisterImage",
            "ec2:DescribeImages",
            "ec2:DeleteSnapshot",
            "ec2:StartInstances",
            "ec2:RunInstances",
            "ec2:StopInstances",
            "ec2:TerminateInstances",
            "ec2:DescribeInstanceStatus",
            "ec2:CreateTags",
            "ec2:DeleteTags",
            "ec2:DescribeTags",
            "cloudformation:CreateStack",
            "cloudformation:DescribeStackEvents",
            "cloudformation:DescribeStacks",
            "cloudformation:UpdateStack",
            "cloudformation:DeleteStack",
            "cloudformation:TagResource",
            "cloudformation:UntagResource"
          ],
          "Resource": [
            "*"
          ]
        },
        {
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Action": [
            "ssm:*"
          ],
          "Resource": [
            "*"
          ]
        },
        {
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Action": [
            "sns:Publish"
          ],
          "Resource": [
            "arn:aws:sns:*:*:Automation*"
          ]
        },
        {
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Action": [
            "ssmmessages:OpenDataChannel"
          ],
          "Resource": [
            "arn:*:ssm:*:*:session/*"
          ]
        }
      ]
    },
    "VersionId": "v9",
    "IsDefaultVersion": true,
    "CreateDate": "2026-03-20T17:42:14+00:00"
  }
}

Version History (13 recorded)

Raw history

v9updated

2 actions added

Mar 31, 2026

2435be5

AmazonSSMAutomationRole - Policy Version v8