Permission Model

Exactly what is granted in each cloud, and what is never asked for.

One row per dimension, one column per cloud — the identity used, the role granted, how long the credential lives, and every API called. Read it against your own policy and the answer to “what can this thing actually do?” is on the page rather than in a support thread.

The Cloud-Vex permission model, compared across AWS, Azure and Google Cloud. The product is read-only with no write access, ever: no role, policy or identity below grants create, modify or delete on any resource. Remediation is recommended with an estimated saving and executed by the customer in their own console, and there is no code path in the product that mutates a customer resource. Identity mechanism: on AWS, an IAM role created in each account and assumed by the collector; on Azure, an Entra app registration created per subscription and federated; on Google Cloud, a service account created per project and federated to the job. Role granted: a scoped read-only policy published verbatim on AWS, Reader at management group or subscription scope on Azure, Viewer plus Recommender Viewer on Google Cloud. Credential lifetime: short-lived and minted per run in all three — the collector assumes the per-account role on AWS, through Entra workload identity federation on Azure, and Google Workload Identity Federation on Google Cloud. Inventory APIs called: the Resource Groups Tagging API and per-service describe and list on AWS, Resource Graph on Azure, Cloud Asset Inventory on Google Cloud. Org-wide discovery: AWS Organizations, Azure management groups and subscriptions, and Cloud Resource Manager folders and organizations. Cost APIs called: the Cost Explorer API and a read of the Cost and Usage Report in S3, the Azure Cost Management API and cost exports, and the Cloud Billing API and BigQuery billing export. Recommendation APIs: Compute Optimizer, Trusted Advisor and Cost Optimization Hub; Azure Advisor; Recommender API and Active Assist. Metrics APIs: CloudWatch, Azure Monitor, Cloud Monitoring. Network exposure: the AWS hub terminates HTTPS from collectors and supports PrivateLink, while Azure and Google Cloud collectors are outbound 443 only with no inbound, over Private Link and Private Service Connect respectively. Write access: none requested, in all three clouds. Three standing commitments. First, the exact permission set for each cloud is published and versioned, and any change ships as a new template the customer must apply deliberately. Second, no standing access: no long-lived secret is issued, stored or accepted, and a role or identity created per account, assumed or federated into at run time, is the only supported credential path, running inside the customer's own tenant boundary. Third, revocation is unilateral: remove the role, the app registration or the service account, and access ends at the next scheduled run, with no vendor involvement and nothing to purge on the vendor side.

Write access: none requested. In all three clouds. Not scoped-down write, not write-with-approval — none. There is no code path in the product that mutates a customer resource, which is why remediation is recommended with an estimated saving and run by you, in your own console.

The policy is published, not described. The exact permission set for each cloud is versioned and published verbatim. A change to it ships as a new template you apply deliberately — permissions never widen underneath you.

No standing access, no stored secret. No long-lived credential is issued, stored or even accepted. A role or identity created in each account is the only supported path — assumed by the collector on AWS, Entra workload identity federation on Azure, Google Workload Identity Federation on Google Cloud — and it runs inside your own tenant boundary, minting a short-lived credential per run.

Revocation is yours alone. Remove the role, the app registration or the service account. Access ends at the next scheduled run — no ticket, no vendor involvement, and nothing left on our side to purge. The scan cycle shows where each of these APIs is called, and the compliance page carries the same commitments in prose.

Need the policy documents themselves for a security review? Email support@cloud-vex.com.

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