Week 4: Identity, Authorization, and System Security Direction

1. Objectives

  • Master IAM and least-privilege thinking to prepare for secure backend operations.
  • Understand how users, groups, roles, and policies should be organized in AWS.
  • Evaluate technology directions that could support the backend architecture of the project.

2. Weekly Tasks Breakdown

DayMain TaskDetailsStatus
MonIAM Structure- Studied how IAM Users, Groups, and Roles can be organized for a team environment.
- Related these concepts to backend resource access control.		Completed
TueLeast-Privilege Policies- Practiced drafting and reviewing policies with limited resource scope.
- Avoided broad access grants across AWS resources.		Completed
WedMFA and Account Security- Applied MFA and secure account management practices.
- Reduced dependency on the root account in daily work.		Completed
ThuTechnology Update- Attended the AWS re:Invent recap activity.
- Expanded my view of services that could support backend architecture.		Completed
FriArchitecture Relevance Review- Evaluated directions such as Cognito and newer data services for auth, data flow, and logging use cases.
- Summarized what could be relevant to the project.		Completed

3. Outcomes

  • Developed a clearer understanding of AWS resource access control at the user and role level.
  • Built a stronger foundation for later decisions around authentication, authorization, and backend security.
  • Reinforced a least-privilege mindset for every system component.

4. Issues & Solutions

  • Issue: Fine-grained policy writing with ARNs was error-prone at first.
  • Solution: Generated draft policies with support tools, then refined them manually to match actual resources.

5. Next Steps

  • Move into serverless architecture and backend design with Lambda, API Gateway, and DynamoDB.
  • Start connecting infrastructure knowledge with the actual product direction of the team.