IAM Security Reviewer

Purpose & When-To-Use

Trigger conditions:

• IAM security audit before production deployment
• NIST SP 800-63B compliance requirement
• Post-incident identity and access review
• Privileged access management (PAM) assessment
• Third-party IAM security questionnaire

Not for:

• IAM system implementation (provides assessment only)
• Real-time access monitoring (use SIEM/access analytics tools)
• Cloud-specific IAM (use security-cloud-analyzer for AWS/Azure/GCP IAM)
• Application-level authentication (use security-appsec-validator)

Pre-Checks

Time normalization:

• Compute NOW_ET using NIST/time.gov semantics (America/New_York, ISO-8601): 2025-10-26T01:33:55-04:00
• Use NOW_ET for all citation access dates

Input validation:

• identity_provider must be non-empty string
• iam_scope must be one of: [authentication, authorization, accounts, all]
• authenticator_level must be one of: [AAL1, AAL2, AAL3] or omitted

Source freshness:

• NIST SP 800-63B Digital Identity Guidelines (accessed 2025-10-26T01:33:55-04:00): https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/sp/800-63b/final
• NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 IAM Controls (accessed 2025-10-26T01:33:55-04:00): https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/sp/800-53/rev-5/final

Procedure

Step 1: Critical IAM Controls Check

Authentication:

1. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) enabled for privileged accounts
2. Password policy compliance per NIST SP 800-63B (accessed 2025-10-26T01:33:55-04:00):
   • Minimum 8 characters (12+ for privileged accounts)
   • No complexity requirements (NIST deprecates forced character mixing)
   • Password breach database checking
   • No periodic password rotation (only change on compromise)
3. Session timeout configured (15-30 minutes for privileged access)
4. Secure session cookies (HttpOnly, Secure, SameSite)

Authorization:

1. Least privilege principle applied (no overpermissive roles)
2. Role-based access control (RBAC) or attribute-based access control (ABAC)
3. Separation of duties for critical operations
4. Just-in-time (JIT) access provisioning for privileged operations

Account Management:

1. Service account key rotation (90-day max age)
2. Inactive account deactivation (30-60 days of inactivity)
3. Privileged account monitoring and logging
4. No shared accounts for individual users

Step 2: NIST Authenticator Assurance Level (AAL) Compliance

If authenticator_level specified, validate:

• AAL1: Single-factor authentication acceptable
• AAL2: MFA required (something you know + something you have)
• AAL3: Hardware-based authenticator required (FIDO2, smart card)

Token budgets:

• T1: ≤2k tokens (critical IAM controls)
• T2: ≤6k tokens (full IAM audit with NIST AAL compliance)
• T3: Not applicable for this skill (use security-auditor agent for comprehensive assessments)

Decision Rules

Ambiguity thresholds:

• If IAM configuration unavailable → request policy documents or admin access
• If password policy unclear → request authentication system documentation

Abort conditions:

• No identity provider specified → cannot proceed
• No IAM policies or user data accessible → limited to documentation review

Severity classification:

• Critical: No MFA on admin accounts, shared credentials (CVSS 9.0-10.0)
• High: Overpermissive policies, no key rotation (CVSS 7.0-8.9)
• Medium: Password policy gaps, missing session timeout (CVSS 4.0-6.9)
• Low: Best practice deviations (CVSS 0.1-3.9)

Output Contract

Required fields:

{
  "identity_provider": "string",
  "iam_scope": "authentication|authorization|accounts|all",
  "authenticator_level": "AAL1|AAL2|AAL3 or null",
  "timestamp": "ISO-8601 with timezone",
  "findings": [
    {
      "id": "unique identifier",
      "category": "authentication|authorization|account-management",
      "severity": "critical|high|medium|low",
      "cvss_score": 0.0,
      "title": "brief description",
      "description": "detailed finding",
      "nist_reference": "SP 800-63B section X.Y or SP 800-53 AC-2",
      "affected_accounts": ["account names or roles"],
      "remediation": "specific fix steps",
      "remediation_policy": "IAM policy JSON or config snippet"
    }
  ],
  "nist_aal_compliance": {
    "target_level": "AAL1|AAL2|AAL3",
    "current_level": "AAL1|AAL2|AAL3",
    "compliant": true,
    "gaps": ["list of gaps if not compliant"]
  },
  "summary": {
    "total_findings": 0,
    "critical_count": 0,
    "high_count": 0,
    "overall_risk": "critical|high|medium|low"
  }
}

Examples

Example: MFA Enforcement Check

# Input
identity_provider: "corporate-idp"
iam_scope: "authentication"
authenticator_level: "AAL2"

# Output (abbreviated)
{
  "identity_provider": "corporate-idp",
  "findings": [
    {
      "id": "IAM-001",
      "category": "authentication",
      "severity": "critical",
      "cvss_score": 9.1,
      "title": "MFA not enforced for admin role",
      "nist_reference": "SP 800-63B Section 4.2 (AAL2)",
      "remediation": "Enable MFA requirement for all admin accounts"
    }
  ],
  "nist_aal_compliance": {
    "target_level": "AAL2",
    "current_level": "AAL1",
    "compliant": false,
    "gaps": ["MFA not enforced"]
  },
  "summary": {"critical_count": 1, "overall_risk": "critical"}
}

Quality Gates

Token budgets:

• T1 ≤2k tokens (critical IAM controls)
• T2 ≤6k tokens (full IAM audit with NIST AAL compliance)

Safety:

• No credentials or tokens in examples
• No actual account names in public findings

Auditability:

• Findings cite NIST SP 800-63B or SP 800-53 controls
• Password policy recommendations align with current NIST guidance

Determinism:

• Same IAM state + inputs = consistent findings

Resources

NIST Standards:

• NIST SP 800-63B (Digital Identity Guidelines): https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/sp/800-63b/final (accessed 2025-10-26T01:33:55-04:00)
• NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 (IAM Controls AC family): https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/sp/800-53/rev-5/final (accessed 2025-10-26T01:33:55-04:00)

IAM Best Practices:

• OWASP Authentication Cheat Sheet: https://cheatsheetseries.owasp.org/cheatsheets/Authentication_Cheat_Sheet.html (accessed 2025-10-26T01:33:55-04:00)
• CIS Controls v8 (Access Control): https://www.cisecurity.org/controls (accessed 2025-10-26T01:33:55-04:00)

Privileged Access:

• NIST Privileged Account Management: https://csrc.nist.gov/glossary/term/privileged_account (accessed 2025-10-26T01:33:55-04:00)