What is AWS Verified Access?

AWS Verified Access is a service that lets you securely connect users to your internal web apps—without needing a VPN.

You read that right. No VPN needed. Verified Access uses the Zero Trust model, meaning “trust no one by default.” It verifies the user’s identity and their device posture before granting access.

Why Should Beginners Like Us Care?

As cloud newbies, we usually focus on EC2, S3, Lambda, and VPC (of course). But security is a big deal in cloud computing, and that’s where Verified Access comes in:

  • No VPN Required: Easy to set up access without old-school network tunnels.
  • Fine-Grained Access Control: Only let the right people with the right devices access your app.
  • Integrates with IAM Identity Center.
  • Improves Visibility: Logs all access attempts to CloudWatch for easy monitoring. So, if you're building internal tools for your dev team, or hosting something sensitive on EC2—Verified Access can lock it down. 🏗️ How Does It Work?

Here’s a simple beginner flow of how it works:

✅ User Tries to Access a private web app.

👤 Verified Access Checks their identity and device.

🔓 If verified, grants access to the app. If not—bye-bye.

how it works

You create a Verified Access instance, attach it to a load balancer (usually an Application Load Balancer), and define the trust providers (like IAM Identity Center ). Pretty neat for a security service!

Prerequisites:

EC2 instance hosting a simple app (e.g., Flask, Node.js, or even a static HTML).

Application Load Balancer.

IAM Identity Center (or create a mock provider for testing).

Steps to Try:

Go to the AWS Console > Verified Access.

Create a Verified Access instance.

Connect your ALB.

Choose your trust provider.

Define access policies using Cedar (AWS's new policy language—super readable!).

Test by accessing your app via the Verified Access endpoint.

📌 My Final Thoughts

As someone new to cloud security, learning about AWS Verified Access was refreshing. It’s a solid option if you're thinking about Zero Trust and want to avoid the hassle of setting up VPNs for internal apps.

If you’re also learning AWS, don’t be afraid to explore the less-popular services. You might find something awesome, just like I did.

Drop a comment, I’d love to hear how you’re handling internal access securely in your projects 👇

Let’s keep learning 💡