Which AWS service enables management of access to AWS resources for providing specific permissions?

AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) is the service specifically designed for managing access to AWS resources by providing fine-grained permissions. IAM allows you to create and manage AWS users, groups, and roles, and it enables you to define policies that dictate what actions those users or roles can perform on specific resources.

IAM plays a crucial role in securing your AWS environment because it ensures that only authorized users have access to particular services or resources, thereby adhering to the principle of least privilege. For instance, you can allow certain users to launch EC2 instances, while restricting others from accessing sensitive data stored in S3 buckets. This capability to tailor permissions effectively supports organizations in maintaining robust security controls, compliance, and operational governance.

The other options listed do not provide access management functionalities. Amazon CloudFront is primarily a content delivery network (CDN) service that speeds up the distribution of static and dynamic web content. Amazon Route 53 is a scalable Domain Name System (DNS) web service that manages domains and routing. Amazon S3 is an object storage service that allows for storing and retrieving data but relies on IAM policies to manage access—thus not being a dedicated access management solution itself.