Ensure no 'root' user account access key exists

How it is checked

Audit method: Manual review

This recommendation cannot be checked automatically. A scan lists it with these instructions when you pass --include-manual.

Perform the following to determine if the 'root' user account has access keys: From Console: 1. Login to the IAM Management Console (https://console.aws.amazon.com/iam) 2. Click on Credential Report. 3. Download the .csv file which contains credential usage for all IAM users within an AWS Account 4. Open the file 5. For the root user, ensure the access_key_1_active and access_key_2_active fields are set to FALSE. From Command Line: 1. Run the following command: aws iam get-account-summary | grep "AccountAccessKeysPresent" 2. If no 'root' access keys exist the output will show "AccountAccessKeysPresent": 0, 3. If the output shows a "1", then 'root' keys exist and should be deleted

How it is fixed

Fix method: Guidance or infrastructure patch

Perform the following to delete active 'root' user access keys. From Console: 1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console as 'root' and open the IAM console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/iam/ 2. Click on <root_account> at the top right and select Security Credentials from the drop down list 3. Click on Access Keys (Access Key ID and Secret Access Key) 4. If there are active keys: - Deactivate the key under Status - Click Delete (Deleted keys cannot be recovered) Note: While a key can be made inactive, it will still appear in CLI audit output and may result in a false positive. Keys should be deleted to ensure compliance.