The AWS Access Quarterly Check-In is more than a compliance box to tick. It is an essential habit for preventing unauthorized access, tightening security, and controlling the sprawl of IAM permissions. Small gaps in access review can turn into large, costly problems. That’s why making this review part of your engineering rhythm is critical.
Start with a complete inventory of all IAM users, roles, and access keys. Check last-used timestamps. Remove credentials that have gone stale. Rotate any keys older than your security policy allows. Pay close attention to cross-account roles and third-party integrations—these often linger beyond their original purpose and increase your attack surface.
Audit group policies and inline permissions. Keep roles lean using the principle of least privilege. Permissions that were justified last quarter may be unnecessary now. For production accounts, ensure MFA is enforced on all users with console access and restrict programmatic keys to the absolute minimum.