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# Building a Comprehensive AWS Config Lab: Tracking IAM Configuration Changes with SNS and S3
### Introduction
Identity and Access Management (IAM) sits at the heart of AWS security. A single unnoticed change to a role, policy, or user could open the door to privilege escalation or unauthorised access.
This lab demonstrates a **Proof-of-Concept (POC)** setup using **AWS Config** to **track IAM configuration changes** in real-time, send **notifications via SNS**, and store **detailed history in S3** for long-term analysis.
This implementation is simple enough for a lab environment yet practical enough to adapt directly to production.
### Why This Lab Matters
AWS Config is a **configuration change tracking** service that can record the history of your AWS resources. By targeting IAM resources specifically, this setup focuses on **high-impact security changes** such as:
* Creation or deletion of IAM users
* Policy attachments or removals
* Trust policy modifications
* Privilege escalations
With **SNS for real-time alerts** and **S3 for historical storage**, you get both immediate visibility and an audit-ready trail of every change.
### Lab Architecture
**Flow Overview:**
1. **AWS Config** records IAM resource changes.
2. **SNS Topic** receives change notifications.
3. **S3 Bucket** stores configuration history and snapshots.
### Prerequisites
Before you start, make sure you have:
* An AWS account with permissions to:
* Create and configure AWS Config
* Create IAM roles, SNS topics, and S3 buckets
* Basic understanding of IAM roles and policies
**Extra Considerations:**
* **Regional Awareness:** IAM is global service, enable AWS Config’s *global resource recording* in only one region to avoid duplicate charges.
* **Cost Management:** AWS Config charges per configuration item. Record selectively.
* **Permissions:** AWS Config’s service role must have permissions for S3 and SNS
### AWS Config Setup
### Let AWS Config Create Storage and Notifications
For this lab, instead of manually creating the S3 bucket and SNS topic, we used AWS Config’s built-in option to **automatically provision** them during initial setup.
When you choose this option:
* AWS Config creates an S3 bucket with a unique name (e.g., `awsconfig-bucket-1234567890-region`).
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* An SNS topic is created and automatically linked to AWS Config.
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* All necessary permissions are applied by default.
**Why this is useful for a POC:**
* Zero additional setup - you can go from nothing to a working lab in minutes.
* AWS handles IAM policies for these resources automatically.
* Great for testing AWS Config capabilities without worrying about infrastructure.
**Things to note for production:**
* Auto-created buckets have generic names and no lifecycle policies by default - storage can grow quickly.
* SNS topics will need explicit subscription management to send notifications where you need them.
* You might want to enable S3 versioning and custom bucket policies for compliance.
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