Simplify access to external services using AWS IAM Outbound Identity Federation

When building applications that span multiple cloud providers or integrate with external services, developers face a persistent challenge: managing credentials securely. Traditional approaches require storing long-term credentials like API keys and passwords, creating security risks and operational overhead.

Today, we’re announcing a new capability called AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) outbound identity federation that customers can use to securely federate their Amazon Web Services (AWS) identities to external services without storing long-term credentials. You can now use short-lived JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) to authenticate your AWS workloads with a wide range of third-party providers, software-as-a-service (SaaS) platforms and self-hosted applications.

This feature enables IAM principals—such as IAM roles and users—to obtain cryptographically signed JWTs that assert their AWS identity. External services, such as third-party providers, SaaS platforms, and on-premises applications, can verify the token’s authenticity by validating its signature. Upon successful verification, you can securely ...