CIS Hardened Images Now on Azure Government Marketplace
August 1, 2018
East Greenbush, NY
CIS securely configured operating systems for cloud environments now available for government users
CIS Hardened Images™ are now available as paid hourly virtual machine offers in Azure Government Marketplace. Azure Government is a cloud environment specifically for U.S. government entities and its solution providers. Microsoft announced the availability of paid hourly offers in Azure Government at its Inspire event on Tuesday, July 17, 2018.
Lily Kim, Microsoft Azure Government General Manager commented “The addition of CIS Hardened Images™ to the Azure Government Marketplace will enable our shared Department of Defense and government agency customers to quickly deploy VM images with the global standard CIS Benchmarks cybersecurity safeguards, saving time while improving security.“
CIS Hardened Images are virtual machine images that have been securely configured according to the recommendations of the CIS Benchmarks™. Collaboratively developed by a global community of cybersecurity experts, the CIS Benchmarks are configuration guidelines for various technology groups that can be used to safeguard systems against cyber threats. CIS Hardened Images bring the secure configuration of the CIS Benchmarks to the cloud.
“Using CIS Hardened Images enables Azure users to save time without compromising cybersecurity,” said Brig. Gen. USAF (Ret.) Steve Spano, CIS President and COO. “Hardening an image manually can be a tedious process – a single operating system can have over 200 configuration settings. We’re excited to extend the availability of paid hourly offers to Azure Government users. Azure users can also use the free CIS Azure Foundations Benchmark, which helps an organization build a set of security policies and processes to protect data and assets in their Azure cloud environment.”
Azure Government delivers a cloud platform built upon the foundational principles of security, privacy & control, compliance, and transparency. Public Sector entities receive a physically isolated instance of Microsoft Azure. Government entities can now take advantage of Marketplace benefits like paying only for what you use and the ability to scale up or down on the fly. Offerings include CIS Hardened Images for Microsoft Windows Server, Ubuntu Linux, Oracle Linux, SUSE Linux, and CentOS Linux.
About CIS
CIS® (Center for Internet Security, Inc.) is a forward-thinking, non-profit entity that harnesses the power of a global IT community to safeguard private and public organizations against cyber threats. The CIS Controls™ and CIS Benchmarks™ are the global standard and recognized best practices for securing IT systems and data against the most pervasive attacks. These proven guidelines are continuously refined and verified by a volunteer, global community of experienced IT professionals. Our CIS Hardened Images are virtual machine emulations preconfigured to provide secure, on-demand, and scalable computing environments in the cloud. CIS is home to both the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center® (MS-ISAC®), the go-to resource for cyber threat prevention, protection, response, and recovery for U.S. State, Local, Tribal, and Territorial government entities, and the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center™ (EI-ISAC™), which supports the cybersecurity needs of U.S. State, Local and Territorial elections offices. To learn more, visit CISecurity.org or follow us on Twitter: @CISecurity
