10 ½ Reasons You Should Automate CIS Compliance

The 1/2 reason just may be the most important.

Just the words, “CIS compliance” can trigger anxiety for some. And that’s nothing compared to the burden of actually doing it—and maintaining it. If you could just push a button and get it done for you, wouldn’t you?

SteelCloud’s ConfigOS Command Center compliance automation and remediation software are proven, battle-tested solutions that turn weeks of hardening work into a simple one-hour task. Now you can eliminate time-consuming manual tasks, reduce system downtime, and enhances overall security with little to no effort.

Taking only 2 minutes to install, your team can be up and hardening after 2 hours of training without needing any specialized expertise. With security being mission-critical to your business, consider these 10.5 reasons why you should automate your CIS compliance with SteelCloud.

1.   Accelerate Implementation Speed

Automated CIS compliance only takes an hour or less to achieve a secure baseline, versus manual processes that can take hours, days, or weeks to achieve the same goal. When your administrators need to manage 100 or more systems, automation saves them vast amounts of time. And, since time is money, automation saves your budget too.

2.   Document Compliance Immediately and Accurately

No piles of papers and long remediation wait times. From the moment you first implement ConfigOS, you get fully hardened systems in under an hour. After every update, you can accomplish ongoing remediation in less than three minutes. At the end of every update, you get virtually immediate compliance documentation.

3.   Reduce Manual Effort

Automation eliminates the manual processes that make compliance expensive and burdensome. An all-purpose tool scans, remediates, and reports in a single step with all waivers built in. You get the documentation you need, and your admin gets a well-deserved coffee break.

4.   Optimize Productivity with an Easy-to-Use Interface

Usually, CIS Benchmark compliance work requires experienced mid- to senior-level administrators who do the deeply technical work of reviewing configuration changes, updating system configuration files, working with Active Directory, and developing custom scripts. With ConfigOS automation, junior-level administrators can take over the scanning, remediation, and compliance reporting process after a single, short training session.

5.   Create New Secure Baselines

With automation, you can create standardized, secure baselines then clone them across multiple systems. Since the automation fixes conflicts and remediates drift, it handles any differences that exist across applications or systems.

6.   Maintain Secure Baselines

Getting secure and compliant is hard, but staying that way is even harder. Patches, updates, administrative changes, and new software installation all create configuration drift and compliance issues. ConfigOS fixes these problems, applying CIS Benchmark updates in 15 minutes.

7.   Manage All Systems in One Place

Automation gives you one interface where your administrator can scan and remediate all systems across the network. With everything in one place, you have a comprehensive view of your system security and a single source of compliance documentation that reduces the time spent preparing for audits.

8.   Reduce Service Delivery Costs

By eliminating manual tasks, automation saves you money which ultimately increases your overall revenue margins. From hiring experienced people, to the time spent on the tasks, to potential downtime arising from conflicts, manual processes are expensive!

9.   Increase Agility

Agility means responding to changes, threats, or opportunities quickly. With automation, you can scan and remediate 3,000 to 5,000 systems per hour. Manually, applying CIS Benchmark updates would take 4 hours per system, meaning that 100 systems take 400 hours. Even if nothing goes wrong, that’s a lot of hours and definitely not something that would be considered “agile.” ConfigOS can get you fully scanned and remediated within minutes.

10. Enhance Quality and Consistency

Automation does what you tell it to do, applying controls the same way, every time, to each system. By automating your CIS Benchmark compliance, you can eliminate human error risk for continuous, drift-free, accurately documented compliance.

10½. Do You

Let’s face it, your contracts may require it, and you may do it, but your core business is not complying with CIS Benchmarks. It’s a distraction from your mission. Automation removes the distraction to let you focus on what you do best.

Compliance is a worthy goal, but if it’s an expensive, time-consuming distraction from your core products and services, then it becomes a necessary evil. And if you can automate it, why wouldn’t you? Schedule a free demo of ConfigOS and see how you can do what you need to do, while also doing you.