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The executive team of a leading technology and services company was looking to secure its assets from any possible cyber-attacks. The employees would work on various projects for the customers and had a range of assets like laptops, servers, USBs, smartphones, and other devices. The employees would work from different locations, and managing and maintaining security standards was complex.
Rather than debating what security standards best fit the situation, the leadership decided to go with CIS controls and approached us to help execute. CIS Top20 Controls helped the client achieve the required security standards quickly and saved the time of starting from scratch.
Inconsistent Risk Management
The client evaluated multiple vendors before selecting us for the project. However, vendor assessment and evaluation took too much time and effort. With the lack of automation in the collection and analysis of vendor surveys, the process was cumbersome and manual. But ultimately, we were selected for CIS Top 20project for the client because of our long-standing relationship and approach to the overhaul of security standards.
One of the biggest challenges at hand was centralizing third-Party risk management functions. The customer worked with multiple vendors and third-party service providers and was looking to extend the CIS standards to those relationships and transactions. One of the goals of this entire exercise was minimizing inconsistent vendor risk management methodologies.
By implementing the CIS Top 20 Controls, we helped strengthen our client’s security posture, earning their trust and reinforcing their market reputation.This industry-recognized framework was essential in establishing robust cybersecurity practices. CIS hardening played a key role in safeguarding the client’s environment against both internal vulnerabilities and external threats, ensuring compliance and resilience.
Security & Compliance
- CIS-CAT Pro – Benchmark scanning and configuration assessment
- OpenSCAP – Compliance automation and vulnerability assessment
- Lynis – Security auditing tool for Unix-based systems
- AuditD – Linux auditing system for activity logging and monitoring
Infrastructure & Configuration Management
- Ansible – Automated CIS hardening and patch management
- Terraform – Infrastructure as Code (IaC) to provision secure cloud environments
- AWS Config / Azure Policy – Enforcing compliance rules in cloud environments
Monitoring & Logging
- Splunk / ELK Stack – Centralized logging and real-time monitoring
- OSSEC / Wazuh – Host-based intrusion detection system (HIDS)
Endpoint & Network Security
- CrowdStrike / SentinelOne – Endpoint detection and response (EDR)
- Snort / Suricata – Network intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDS/IPS)
Identity & Access Management
- Okta / Azure AD – Identity federation and MFA enforcement
- Vault by HashiCorp – Secrets and credential management
DevSecOps
- SonarQube / Checkmarx – Static code analysis and vulnerability detection
- Jenkins / GitLab CI – Secure CI/CD pipeline integration with compliance checks
-CIS Top 20 has produced several outcomes for the customer. We laid out step-by-step instructions for protecting every aspect of the IT infrastructure and maintaining and updating it regularly.
-With a versatile framework for safely implementing digital transformation initiatives and deploying new cloud services, the client was more ready than ever to kick-start some of its technology initiatives. Simple-to-implement configurations increase operational efficiency and sustainability for the customer.
-The CIS Controls implementation has given IT and security management, engineers, and end users comfort and confidence.
