CIS Hardened Images Arrive On AWS GovCloud Marketplace

US government customers now finally have access to securely configured virtual images, as the CIS Hardened Images are now available in the AWS GovCloud Marketplace.

These have been accessible to other customers through the AWS Marketplace since 2015.

Amazon Machine Images, also known as AMIs, are the packages that deliver all the required information to instantly launch a virtual server up in the cloud.

CIS is a nonprofit organization working to safeguards private and public organizations against cyber threats and provides continually refined guidelines that are verified by a volunteer community of experienced IT professionals.

And as revealed by the Center for Internet Security, these images are configured with extreme security in mind, based on an internationally recognized set of standards called CIS Benchmarks.

Brig. Gen. USAF (Ret.) Steve Spano, CIS President and COO:

“A single operating system can have over 200 configuration settings, so hardening an image manually can be a tedious process, especially across multiple virtual machine environments. To save time without compromising cybersecurity, AWS GovCloud (US) users should consider spinning up a CIS Hardened Image.

In fact, frequent AWS users should start with the CIS AWS Foundations Benchmark, which helps an organization build a set of security policies and processes to protect data and assets in the AWS Cloud. We’re excited to now be available on AWS GovCloud (US), and CIS is proud to collaborate with AWS to soon provide secure configurations in all AWS regions.”

Sounds delightful.

More information on CIS Hardened Images is available on its website.