Amazon STS

Amazon STS stands for Amazon Web Services (AWS) Security Token Service. It is a web service that provides temporary security credentials that can be used to access AWS resources. STS enables you to grant temporary access to your AWS resources to users, applications, or services without having to share long-term access credentials.

The primary use case for Amazon STS is to facilitate cross-account access and federation scenarios. For example, if you have an application running in one AWS account that needs to access resources in another AWS account, you can use STS to obtain temporary security credentials for the target account. This way, you don’t need to share your long-term AWS access keys or create additional IAM users in the target account.

Amazon STS supports three main types of operations:

1. AssumeRole: This operation allows you to obtain temporary security credentials by assuming an IAM role in your AWS account or a different AWS account.

2. GetSessionToken: This operation allows you to get temporary security credentials for your IAM user. This is typically used when you need to provide temporary access for a user or application without creating an IAM role.

3. GetFederationToken: This operation allows you to obtain temporary security credentials for federated users. Federated users are users who are not directly managed within your AWS account’s IAM system but are authenticated using an external identity provider, such as SAML-based authentication.

Amazon STS can be accessed through the AWS Management Console, AWS SDKs, AWS CLI, or any programming language that supports AWS API calls.

It’s important to note that the use of STS and temporary credentials enhances security by reducing the exposure of long-term access keys and provides better control over the permissions granted to applications or users