CIS recently released CIS Hardened Images for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 into the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, an online store providing applications and services for use on Microsoft Azure. CIS Hardened Images are virtual machines preconfigured according to the security recommendations of the CIS Benchmarks. In the past year, CIS has released a total of 18 CIS Hardened Images for various operating systems into the Azure Marketplace and the Azure Government Marketplace.

Hardening is the process of limiting potential vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and cyber criminals. The CIS Benchmarks are a set of consensus-based recommendations developed by cybersecurity experts around the world to improve cybersecurity defenses for various technologies. While operating systems can have hundreds of vulnerabilities by default, CIS Hardened Images are preconfigured to strengthen security, reduce system build costs, and help accelerate workload deployment time. 

CIS Hardened Images in Azure are configured with the majority of the relevant CIS Benchmark recommendations. Each CIS Hardened Image includes CIS-CAT Pro assessment reports and exception reports against the applicable CIS Benchmarks.

"A default instance of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 can have over 220 configuration settings that are recommended to be reconfigured according to the related CIS Benchmark. Hardening an image manually can be a tedious process, especially across multiple virtual machine environments," said Brig. Gen. USAF (Retired) Steve Spano, CIS President and COO. "To save time without compromising cybersecurity, Azure users should consider spinning up a CIS Hardened Image. In fact, frequent Azure users should start with the CIS Azure Foundations Benchmark, which helps an organization build a set of security policies and processes to protect data and assets in Azure."

"Through Microsoft Azure Marketplace, customers around the world can easily find, buy, and deploy partner solutions they can trust, all certified and optimized to run on Azure," said Sajan Parihar, Director, Microsoft Azure Platform at Microsoft Corp. "We're happy to welcome CIS Hardened Images for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 to the growing Azure Marketplace ecosystem."

The Azure Marketplace is an online market for buying and selling finished Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications and premium datasets. The Azure Marketplace helps connect companies seeking innovative, cloud-based solutions with partners who have developed solutions that are ready to use.