Map AWS IAM to GCP and Azure Equivalents

You have learned AWS IAM deeply and now GCP and Azure. The real skill of a multi-cloud GRC engineer is not memorizing each cloud's terminology — it is translating a security architecture from one cloud to equivalent controls in another. When an organization expands from AWS to GCP or Azure, someone has to ensure the same security guarantees carry over. That someone is you.

In this exercise, you will take a well-architected AWS IAM setup and map each control to its GCP and Azure equivalent. There is no single correct answer for every line — multiple approaches can be valid — but the reference solution shows the architecturally preferred approach for each.

Why this matters

Multi-cloud is the reality for most enterprises. A GRC engineer who can only audit AWS is limited to single-cloud organizations. The ability to say "your AWS environment enforces X, but your GCP environment has no equivalent control" is how you find the gaps that create real risk. This mapping exercise builds that cross-cloud fluency.

Exercise

~30 min

Translate this audit finding into a technical remediation plan

Multi-Cloud IAM Finding

Multi-Cloud IAM Architecture Mapping

ID:

CROSS-CLOUD-IAM-2026

Criterion:

Cross-Cloud Equivalence

Severity:

N/A — Design Exercise

A company running AWS is expanding to GCP and Azure. Map their existing AWS IAM controls to equivalent controls in each cloud. For each AWS control, identify the GCP and Azure mechanism that achieves the same security outcome.

Auditor Notes

The company uses IAM roles for all workloads (no IAM users for applications), SCPs to prevent CloudTrail deletion, cross-account roles for the security team to access all member accounts, permission boundaries to limit what team leads can delegate, and a break-glass IAM user with MFA and a hardware key stored in a physical safe.

Write your remediation plan in YAML below. Fill in every field — replace all placeholder comments.

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