SystemAdministrator

Last Modified

Mar 12, 2026

March 12, 2026 at 09:29 PM UTC

Version

v12

Total Versions

Created

Feb 12, 2026

Actions

225

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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 change identities and their permissions
Grants 5 permissions management actions on IAM, IAM Identity Center or Organizations, on any resource with no condition.
iam:updateservercertificateiam:updatesigningcertificateiam:uploadservercertificateiam:uploadsigningcertificateiam:uploadsshpublickey
Use with caution: Grant it only to identity administrators, and protect your admin roles and SCPs with a permissions boundary or an SCP of their own.
High
Can take over existing resources that run as another role
Grants every action of 6 documented escalation paths on any resource with no condition.
- codedeploy-001codedeploy:CreateDeploymentunrestricted
- ec2-002ec2:ModifyInstanceAttribute + ec2:StopInstances + ec2:StartInstancesunrestricted
- ec2-004ec2:CreateLaunchTemplateVersion + ec2:ModifyLaunchTemplateunrestricted
- ec2-005ec2:CreateLaunchTemplateVersion + ec2:ModifyLaunchTemplateunrestricted
- lambda-003lambda:UpdateFunctionCodeunrestricted
- lambda-004lambda:UpdateFunctionCode + lambda:InvokeFunctionunrestricted
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 switch off security monitoring
Can stop a CloudTrail trail, stop AWS Config recording, delete the AWS Config recorder, delete VPC flow logs, delete CloudWatch log groups, which is how an intruder hides.
cloudtrail:StopLoggingconfig:StopConfigurationRecorder (via config:*)config:DeleteConfigurationRecorder (via config:*)ec2:DeleteFlowLogslogs:DeleteLogGroup (via logs:*)
Use with caution: Deny these actions with an SCP for everyone outside a break-glass role, so no single policy can blind you.
Medium
Can launch resources that run as a more privileged role
Grants the actions of 4 documented escalation paths, but only on named resources or under a condition. Review that scope before trusting it.
- ec2-001iam:PassRole + ec2:RunInstancesscoped
  - iam:PassRole: on arn:aws:iam::*:role/rds-monitoring-role, arn:aws:iam::*:role/ec2-sysadmin-*, arn:aws:iam::*:role/ecr-sysadmin-*
- ec2-003iam:PassRole + ec2:RequestSpotInstancesscoped
  - iam:PassRole: on arn:aws:iam::*:role/rds-monitoring-role, arn:aws:iam::*:role/ec2-sysadmin-*, arn:aws:iam::*:role/ecr-sysadmin-*
- lambda-001iam:PassRole + lambda:CreateFunction + lambda:InvokeFunctionscoped
  - iam:PassRole: on arn:aws:iam::*:role/rds-monitoring-role, arn:aws:iam::*:role/ec2-sysadmin-*, arn:aws:iam::*:role/ecr-sysadmin-*
- lambda-002iam:PassRole + lambda:CreateFunction + lambda:CreateEventSourceMappingscoped
  - iam:PassRole: on arn:aws:iam::*:role/rds-monitoring-role, arn:aws:iam::*:role/ec2-sysadmin-*, arn:aws:iam::*:role/ecr-sysadmin-*
Use with caution: Check which roles, users or policies fall inside the scope shown above. Within it the escalation works as documented, so keep privileged principals out of it.
Medium
Can read secrets
Reads Lambda environment variables, where credentials often live, on any resource with no condition.
lambda:GetFunctionConfiguration (via lambda:Get*)
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 49 permissions management actions across 10 services (cloudwatch, ds, ec2, events, lambda, logs, ...) on any resource, enough to share resources outside the account.
cloudwatch:assumeaccessprofilecloudwatch:createaccessgrantcloudwatch:createaccessprofilecloudwatch:createdomainaccessgrantfororganizationcloudwatch:deleteaccessgrantcloudwatch:deleteaccessprofilecloudwatch:deletedomainaccessgrantfororganizationcloudwatch:updateaccessprofileds:createtrustec2:modifyvpcendpointservicepermissionsevents:deleteresourcepolicyevents:putpermissionand 37 more
Use with caution: Turn on IAM Access Analyzer external access findings, and keep account-level guards like S3 Block Public Access enabled.
Medium
Can read data in every bucket or table
Reads any object in any S3 bucket. Read-only is not the same as harmless when the data is the asset.
s3:GetObject (via s3:*)
Use with caution: Read access to data is still access to data. For people who only need to see configuration, ViewOnlyAccess carries none of these signals.
Medium
Full access to 16 services on every resource
Uses autoscaling:*, cloudwatch:*, codedeploy:*, codepipeline:*, config:*, ds:*, elasticloadbalancing:*, events:* and 8 more with Resource "*" and no condition, so every action AWS adds to those services later is granted too.
autoscaling:*cloudwatch:*codedeploy:*codepipeline:*config:*ds:*elasticloadbalancing:*events:*logs:*route53:*route53domains:*s3:*ses:*sns:*sqs:*trustedadvisor:*
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.

IAM Access Analyzer (1)

Suggestion / REDUNDANT_ACTION
The 2 action(s) are redundant because they provide similar permissions. Update the policy to remove the redundant action such as: ec2:Allocate*. AWS docs

Policy Document

View on GitHub

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276{
  "PolicyVersion": {
    "Document": {
      "Statement": [
        {
          "Action": [
            "acm:Describe*",
            "acm:Get*",
            "acm:List*",
            "acm:Request*",
            "acm:Resend*",
            "autoscaling:*",
            "cloudtrail:DescribeTrails",
            "cloudtrail:GetTrailStatus",
            "cloudtrail:ListPublicKeys",
            "cloudtrail:ListTags",
            "cloudtrail:LookupEvents",
            "cloudtrail:StartLogging",
            "cloudtrail:StopLogging",
            "cloudwatch:*",
            "codecommit:BatchGetRepositories",
            "codecommit:CreateBranch",
            "codecommit:CreateRepository",
            "codecommit:Get*",
            "codecommit:GitPull",
            "codecommit:GitPush",
            "codecommit:List*",
            "codecommit:Put*",
            "codecommit:Test*",
            "codecommit:Update*",
            "codedeploy:*",
            "codepipeline:*",
            "config:*",
            "ds:*",
            "ec2:Allocate*",
            "ec2:AssignPrivateIpAddresses*",
            "ec2:Associate*",
            "ec2:Allocate*",
            "ec2:AttachInternetGateway",
            "ec2:AttachNetworkInterface",
            "ec2:AttachVpnGateway",
            "ec2:Bundle*",
            "ec2:Cancel*",
            "ec2:Copy*",
            "ec2:CreateCustomerGateway",
            "ec2:CreateDhcpOptions",
            "ec2:CreateFlowLogs",
            "ec2:CreateImage",
            "ec2:CreateInstanceExportTask",
            "ec2:CreateInternetGateway",
            "ec2:CreateKeyPair",
            "ec2:CreateLaunchTemplate",
            "ec2:CreateLaunchTemplateVersion",
            "ec2:CreateNatGateway",
            "ec2:CreateNetworkInterface",
            "ec2:CreatePlacementGroup",
            "ec2:CreateReservedInstancesListing",
            "ec2:CreateRoute",
            "ec2:CreateRouteTable",
            "ec2:CreateSecurityGroup",
            "ec2:CreateSnapshot",
            "ec2:CreateSpotDatafeedSubscription",
            "ec2:CreateSubnet",
            "ec2:CreateTags",
            "ec2:CreateVolume",
            "ec2:CreateVpc",
            "ec2:CreateVpcEndpoint",
            "ec2:CreateVpnConnection",
            "ec2:CreateVpnConnectionRoute",
            "ec2:CreateVpnGateway",
            "ec2:DeleteFlowLogs",
            "ec2:DeleteKeyPair",
            "ec2:DeleteLaunchTemplate",
            "ec2:DeleteLaunchTemplateVersions",
            "ec2:DeleteNatGateway",
            "ec2:DeleteNetworkInterface",
            "ec2:DeletePlacementGroup",
            "ec2:DeleteSnapshot",
            "ec2:DeleteSpotDatafeedSubscription",
            "ec2:DeleteSubnet",
            "ec2:DeleteTags",
            "ec2:DeleteVpc",
            "ec2:DeleteVpcEndpoints",
            "ec2:DeleteVpnConnection",
            "ec2:DeleteVpnConnectionRoute",
            "ec2:DeleteVpnGateway",
            "ec2:DeregisterImage",
            "ec2:Describe*",
            "ec2:DetachInternetGateway",
            "ec2:DetachNetworkInterface",
            "ec2:DetachVpnGateway",
            "ec2:DisableVgwRoutePropagation",
            "ec2:DisableVpcClassicLinkDnsSupport",
            "ec2:DisassociateAddress",
            "ec2:DisassociateRouteTable",
            "ec2:EnableVgwRoutePropagation",
            "ec2:EnableVolumeIO",
            "ec2:EnableVpcClassicLinkDnsSupport",
            "ec2:GetConsoleOutput",
            "ec2:GetHostReservationPurchasePreview",
            "ec2:GetLaunchTemplateData",
            "ec2:GetPasswordData",
            "ec2:GetSecurityGroupsForVpc",
            "ec2:Import*",
            "ec2:Modify*",
            "ec2:MonitorInstances",
            "ec2:MoveAddressToVpc",
            "ec2:Purchase*",
            "ec2:RegisterImage",
            "ec2:Release*",
            "ec2:Replace*",
            "ec2:ReportInstanceStatus",
            "ec2:Request*",
            "ec2:Reset*",
            "ec2:RestoreAddressToClassic",
            "ec2:RunScheduledInstances",
            "ec2:UnassignPrivateIpAddresses",
            "ec2:UnmonitorInstances",
            "ec2:UpdateSecurityGroupRuleDescriptionsEgress",
            "ec2:UpdateSecurityGroupRuleDescriptionsIngress",
            "elasticloadbalancing:*",
            "events:*",
            "iam:GetAccount*",
            "iam:GetContextKeys*",
            "iam:GetCredentialReport",
            "iam:ListAccountAliases",
            "iam:ListGroups",
            "iam:ListOpenIDConnectProviders",
            "iam:ListPolicies",
            "iam:ListPoliciesGrantingServiceAccess",
            "iam:ListRoles",
            "iam:ListSAMLProviders",
            "iam:ListServerCertificates",
            "iam:Simulate*",
            "iam:UpdateServerCertificate",
            "iam:UpdateSigningCertificate",
            "kinesis:ListStreams",
            "kinesis:PutRecord",
            "kms:CreateAlias",
            "kms:CreateKey",
            "kms:DeleteAlias",
            "kms:Describe*",
            "kms:GenerateRandom",
            "kms:Get*",
            "kms:List*",
            "kms:Encrypt",
            "kms:ReEncrypt*",
            "lambda:Create*",
            "lambda:Delete*",
            "lambda:Get*",
            "lambda:InvokeFunction",
            "lambda:List*",
            "lambda:PublishVersion",
            "lambda:Update*",
            "logs:*",
            "rds:Describe*",
            "rds:ListTagsForResource",
            "rolesanywhere:GetCrl",
            "rolesanywhere:GetProfile",
            "rolesanywhere:GetSubject",
            "rolesanywhere:GetTrustAnchor",
            "rolesanywhere:ListCrls",
            "rolesanywhere:ListProfiles",
            "rolesanywhere:ListSubjects",
            "rolesanywhere:ListTagsForResource",
            "rolesanywhere:ListTrustAnchors",
            "rolesanywhere:PutNotificationSettings",
            "rolesanywhere:ResetNotificationSettings",
            "route53:*",
            "route53domains:*",
            "ses:*",
            "sns:*",
            "sqs:*",
            "trustedadvisor:*"
          ],
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
          "Action": [
            "ec2:AcceptVpcPeeringConnection",
            "ec2:AttachClassicLinkVpc",
            "ec2:AttachVolume",
            "ec2:AuthorizeSecurityGroupEgress",
            "ec2:AuthorizeSecurityGroupIngress",
            "ec2:CreateVpcPeeringConnection",
            "ec2:DeleteCustomerGateway",
            "ec2:DeleteDhcpOptions",
            "ec2:DeleteInternetGateway",
            "ec2:DeleteNetworkAcl*",
            "ec2:DeleteRoute",
            "ec2:DeleteRouteTable",
            "ec2:DeleteSecurityGroup",
            "ec2:DeleteVolume",
            "ec2:DeleteVpcPeeringConnection",
            "ec2:DetachClassicLinkVpc",
            "ec2:DetachVolume",
            "ec2:DisableVpcClassicLink",
            "ec2:EnableVpcClassicLink",
            "ec2:GetConsoleScreenshot",
            "ec2:RebootInstances",
            "ec2:RejectVpcPeeringConnection",
            "ec2:RevokeSecurityGroupEgress",
            "ec2:RevokeSecurityGroupIngress",
            "ec2:RunInstances",
            "ec2:StartInstances",
            "ec2:StopInstances",
            "ec2:TerminateInstances"
          ],
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Resource": [
            "*"
          ]
        },
        {
          "Action": "s3:*",
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Resource": [
            "*"
          ]
        },
        {
          "Action": [
            "iam:GetAccessKeyLastUsed",
            "iam:GetGroup*",
            "iam:GetInstanceProfile",
            "iam:GetLoginProfile",
            "iam:GetOpenIDConnectProvider",
            "iam:GetPolicy*",
            "iam:GetRole*",
            "iam:GetSAMLProvider",
            "iam:GetSSHPublicKey",
            "iam:GetServerCertificate",
            "iam:GetServiceLastAccessed*",
            "iam:GetUser*",
            "iam:ListAccessKeys",
            "iam:ListAttached*",
            "iam:ListEntitiesForPolicy",
            "iam:ListGroupPolicies",
            "iam:ListGroupsForUser",
            "iam:ListInstanceProfiles*",
            "iam:ListMFADevices",
            "iam:ListPolicyVersions",
            "iam:ListRolePolicies",
            "iam:ListSSHPublicKeys",
            "iam:ListSigningCertificates",
            "iam:ListUserPolicies",
            "iam:Upload*"
          ],
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Resource": [
            "*"
          ]
        },
        {
          "Action": [
            "iam:GetRole",
            "iam:ListRoles",
            "iam:PassRole"
          ],
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Resource": [
            "arn:aws:iam::*:role/rds-monitoring-role",
            "arn:aws:iam::*:role/ec2-sysadmin-*",
            "arn:aws:iam::*:role/ecr-sysadmin-*",
            "arn:aws:iam::*:role/lambda-sysadmin-*"
          ]
        }
      ],
      "Version": "2012-10-17"
    },
    "VersionId": "v12",
    "IsDefaultVersion": true,
    "CreateDate": "2026-02-12T18:02:37+00:00"
  }
}

Version History (15 recorded)

Raw history

v12updated

scope changed, no action added or removed

Mar 12, 2026

a1227f8

SystemAdministrator - Policy Version v12