AWS has introduced a new capability for AWS Organizations members, allowing administrators to centrally manage and restrict root-user access across multiple AWS accounts. This update enhances security and governance by providing organizations with greater control over the most privileged access within their cloud environments.
Administrators can now get a consolidated view of root- user access across all accounts within an AWS Organization. This includes insights into whether multi-factor authentication (MFA) is enabled, helping security teams enforce best practices.
With the new functionality, AWS Organizations can enforce service control policies (SCPs) to regulate root-level actions, either restricting them entirely or allowing them under specific conditions. This strengthens security by preventing unauthorized use of the root user across accounts and ensures compliance by enforcing critical controls, such as requiring MFA before executing sensitive actions. By mitigating the risk of misconfigurations or accidental privilege escalations, these policies help maintain a more secure and well-governed cloud environment.
AWS recommends keeping root access to a minimum, using it only for essential operations, following the concept of least-privilege access, and preventing any user from having access to full -admin capabilities.
With centralized management, organizations gain greater control and visibility over root- account activity. They can now monitor when and how root accounts are accessed, tracking usage across all accounts to detect potential unauthorized access or security threats. Security teams can also audit compliance by ensuring that root users adhere to organizational policies, such as requiring multi-factor authentication (MFA) or restricting high-risk actions. Additionally, administrators can enforce MFA and apply service control policies (SCPs) to limit root-user privileges, ensuring access is restricted to only essential actions and reducing the risk of misuse or compromise. Should a person need to be granted root access to perform a specific task, there is still a provision of a root session that can provide this access temporarily without needing to provide a person with this level of access permanently.
Previously, organizations in AWS had to manage root-user access at an individual account level, increasing the risk of inconsistent policies and potential security gaps.
Both Azure and Google Cloud also provide hierarchical management structures and centralized identity and access management through their respective Management Groups and Identify and Access Management systems and this update brings AWS up to standard with these approaches.
This feature is available to all AWS Organizations customers. Administrators can configure root access policies within AWS Organizations and use AWS IAM policies and SCPs to enforce restrictions.
