Academy
What is an IAM role?
Glossary · AI agent and machine identity security
Short answer
An IAM role is a set of permissions that an identity can assume to act in a cloud account, often with temporary credentials.
Why it matters
A role is only as safe as who can assume it and what it allows. An execution role for an agent defines how far one compromised agent can go.
What it looks like
An agent's execution role allows reading a secrets store. Anything that controls the agent can then read those secrets.
In nerl0
The Security Graph shows which identities can assume which roles and what those roles reach. See Security Graph.