AmazonSSMReadOnlyAccess

Summary

Provides read only access to Amazon SSM. The AWS Systems Manager User Guide says it grants read-only access to Systems Manager API operations including Describe*, Get* and List*.

Permissions imported from the AWS Managed Policy Reference Guide; other sections reviewed against the listed AWS sources.

Identity

ARN

arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonSSMReadOnlyAccessCopy ARN

Default version

v1

Created

2015-05-29

Last edited

2015-05-29

Services

ssm

Control-plane actions (83)

By access level: 35 List, 48 Read.

Data-plane actions (1)

By access level: 1 Read.

Excluded and conditional actions

No patterns are excluded by NotAction or Deny statements.

Resource scope and attachment

Resource scope across granted actions: all-resources.

Can be attached: Yes, to users, groups and roles.

Why this tier

• Grants only List and Read actions.
• Can read secret values or decrypt data. Reads are not a High privilege rule.

Guidance

Related policies

Same service

• AIOpsOperatorAccess
• AmazonEC2ImageReferencesAccessPolicy
• AmazonEC2RoleforSSM
• AmazonEKSConnectorServiceRolePolicy
• AmazonEKSLocalOutpostClusterPolicy
• AmazonElasticFileSystemsUtils
• AmazonGuardDutyServiceRolePolicy
• AmazonInspector2ServiceRolePolicy

Same domain

• AccountAccessManagerServiceRolePolicy
• AIDevOpsAgentAccessPolicy
• AIDevOpsOrganizationsAccessPolicy
• AmazonCloudWatchEvidentlyServiceRolePolicy
• AmazonCodeCatalystSupportAccess
• AmazonDetectiveOrganizationsAccess
• AmazonDetectiveServiceLinkedRolePolicy
• AmazonDevOpsGuruOrganizationsAccess

Frequently asked questions

When should I attach AmazonSSMReadOnlyAccess?

The reference page says you can attach AmazonSSMReadOnlyAccess to your users, groups and roles, and describes it as: provides read only access to Amazon SSM. Attach it where viewing Systems Manager is the intended scope.

What does AmazonSSMReadOnlyAccess grant?

It allows ssm:Describe*, ssm:Get* and ssm:List* on all resources. The Systems Manager User Guide describes this as read-only access to Systems Manager API operations including Describe*, Get* and List*.

What are the security risks of AmazonSSMReadOnlyAccess?

It has no write actions listed, but the three wildcards cover every ssm action with those prefixes on all resources, and the document does not enumerate them. AWS managed policies don't grant least privilege permissions, and you must consider the security risk of granting principals more permissions than they need. AWS updates to the policy affect every identity it is attached to.

Policy JSON

Download policy.json

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "ssm:Describe*",
        "ssm:Get*",
        "ssm:List*"
      ],
      "Resource": "*"
    }
  ]
}

Version history

Current version v1, edited by AWS on 2015-05-29. Version history is recorded from 2026-11-11. Earlier versions are in the IAM console under Policy versions.

Attach snippets

aws iam attach-role-policy --role-name ROLE_NAME --policy-arn arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonSSMReadOnlyAccess
aws iam attach-user-policy --user-name USER_NAME --policy-arn arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonSSMReadOnlyAccess
aws iam attach-group-policy --group-name GROUP_NAME --policy-arn arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonSSMReadOnlyAccess

Resources:
  ExampleRole:
    Type: AWS::IAM::Role
    Properties:
      AssumeRolePolicyDocument: {}  # replace with your trust policy
      ManagedPolicyArns:
        - arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonSSMReadOnlyAccess

resource "aws_iam_role_policy_attachment" "amazonssmreadonlyaccess" {
  role       = aws_iam_role.example.name
  policy_arn = "arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonSSMReadOnlyAccess"
}

role.addManagedPolicy(
  iam.ManagedPolicy.fromAwsManagedPolicyName("AmazonSSMReadOnlyAccess"),
);

Sources

• AmazonSSMReadOnlyAccess (AWS Managed Policy Reference Guide) (retrieved 2026-11-13; supports summary, practicalScope, useCases, securityConsiderations, assignmentGuidance, faqs)
• AWS managed policies for AWS Systems Manager (retrieved 2026-11-13; supports summary, useCases, assignmentGuidance, faqs)
• Managed policies and inline policies (IAM User Guide) (retrieved 2026-11-12; supports securityConsiderations, faqs)
• AWS managed policies for job functions (IAM User Guide) (retrieved 2026-11-12; supports bestPractices, faqs)

• Official AWS reference for AmazonSSMReadOnlyAccess
• AWS service guide
• Report a data issue