HowTo: Google Authenticator as a virtual MFA Device on the AWS Console (opens in new tab)

This works really well, and is a good motivation for adopting IAM. Our shop has a number of people that need access to the AWS console and in only a couple hours we got this setup for everybody.

Now when people leave the company we just revoke their IAM account and they lose access, instead of having to change the master password over and over and communicate the new pass to everybody.

MFA = multi-factor authentication.

That TLA was new to me.

You can also enable it for the account you are currently logged on as via the front page of IAM in the console.