Inline policy allows privilege escalation to admin
- Severity
- High
- Service
- IAM
- Check ID
- IAM_INLINE_POLICY_PRIVILEGE_ESCALATION
What this check finds
An inline policy grants IAM actions (such as iam:PutRolePolicy, iam:AttachRolePolicy, or iam:CreateAccessKey) on unrestricted resources with no conditions. The principal is not an administrator today, but can make itself one in a single API call, so the permission boundary is effectively admin.
Passing looks like: No inline policy allowing privilege escalation.
How to fix it
Scope the IAM actions in the inline policy to specific resource ARNs, or add a permissions boundary that prevents the principal from modifying its own permissions.
AWS console
IAM → Roles/Users → select principal → Permissions → inline policy → Edit.
Compliance controls it is evidence for
A failing result counts against these controls in KloudLytics; a passing one is evidence towards them. How compliance mapping works
| Framework | Controls |
|---|---|
| NIST SP 800-53 Rev5 (Moderate) |
|
| NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 |
|
| ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A |
|
Checked on every scan
KloudLytics runs this check each time it scans a connected AWS account, through a read-only role, and lists every affected resource with its region. On Pro and Business a fix is written for the specific resource rather than the general case above. The exact access it needs
More IAM checks
- HighDeprecated or flawed AWS managed policy in use
- HighIAM role allows assumption from anywhere
- HighIAM role with admin privileges can be assumed by unexpected principals
- HighIAM role with s3 listing and get privileges can be assumed by unexpected principals
- HighIAM user access key has not been rotated in over 180 days
- HighIncorrect policy used to attempt to enforce MFA
- HighPrincipal has an attached policy granting administrative access
- MediumExpired SSL/TLS certificate stored in IAM