CIS AWS Foundations Benchmark Guide
As cloud adoption accelerates, organizations are under pressure to prove that their environments are secure and compliant. The CIS AWS Foundations Benchmark provides a clear, standardized framework for configuring Amazon Web Services (AWS) securely. It serves as both a best practice guide and a compliance baseline for organizations looking to strengthen their AWS posture.
What is the CIS AWS Foundations Benchmark?
The CIS AWS Foundations Benchmark is a compilation of prescriptive security controls published by the Center for Internet Security (CIS). The Benchmark outlines prescriptive security configuration recommendations related to core AWS services, including Identity and Access Management (IAM), logging, monitoring, and networking.
The Benchmark is intended for AWS administrators, DevOps teams, and security professionals looking to implement and adhere to consistent and auditable security standards across their cloud infrastructure.
Each recommendation for the Benchmark is mapped to either an AWS Config rule, a CloudTrail event, or a CloudWatch metric, allowing teams to automate compliance checks within their AWS accounts.
In short: the CIS AWS Benchmark should be your primary guide for securing your AWS environment with continual compliance to frameworks like ISO 27001, SOC 2, and NIST CSF.
Why it matters
AWS gives you a good amount of leeway, but along with that is shared responsibility. AWS secures the infrastructure that runs in the cloud; customers are responsible for securing everything that is in the cloud, including configurations, identities, and data. The benchmark helps organizations:
- Reduce risk of configuration errors by enforcing known best practices.
- Strengthen compliance alignment with frameworks that reference CIS.
- Accelerate audits by providing verifiable mappings to controls
- Automate remediation using both native AWS tools and third-party integrations.
- Build stakeholder assurance by showing a disciplined approach to cloud security.
In regulated industries like finance, healthcare, and government, alignment with CIS AWS Foundations is often a requirement or strong expectation.
Key Controls in the CIS AWS Foundations Benchmark
The benchmark organizes controls into major domains that focus on visibility, restriction, and accountability. Below is a high-level summary of some of the most critical control categories.
Each control includes a description, rationale, audit procedure, remediation steps, and mapping to relevant frameworks.
How to implement
Implementing the benchmark is a step-by-step process that begins with assessment and ends with automation.
Baseline assessment: run an AWS Config or Security Hub assessment to identify gaps against the CIS AWS Benchmark. Start with Level 1 controls (basic security hygiene) before advancing to Level 2 (advanced restrictions).
Prioritize remediation: address the most critical misconfigurations first; such as public S3 buckets, open ports, or disabled CloudTrail logging.
Automate monitoring: use AWS Config, GuardDuty, and CloudWatch to continuously evaluate control status. Integrate alerts into your compliance platform or ticketing system.
Document evidence: capture screenshots, reports, and logs that demonstrate compliance.
Tools like Complyance can automate this step by linking AWS data directly to your control framework.
Review regularly: re-run benchmark checks quarterly or when new AWS services are introduced. Continuous improvement is key to staying aligned as both the cloud and CIS benchmarks evolve.
Common challenges
Although the benchmark is comprehensive, teams still struggle with the same challenges:
Over-restriction: Applying Level 2 controls too early can disrupt legitimate workloads.
Multi-account sprawl: Ensuring compliance across hundreds of AWS accounts requires a level of centralization.
Evidence fatigue: Collecting evidence across AWS services manually takes a tremendous amount of time.
Misaligned ownership: Security teams dictate / define controls, but DevOps teams must implement them.
Change velocity: The frequency of updates to AWS services can invalidate static configurations.
By aligning with CIS, organizations create a repeatable, evidence-driven process for managing risk and achieving compliance at scale.
Complyance helps organizations operationalize CIS AWS Benchmark requirements through automated evidence collection, continuous control monitoring, and direct integrations with AWS services. With visibility across every account, control, and alert, Complyance transforms AWS compliance from a reactive task into a proactive part of security strategy.
FAQs
Is CIS AWS Foundations mandatory? No. However, many compliance frameworks reference it as a baseline for AWS security posture and risk management.
What are the differences between Level 1 and Level 2 benchmarks? Level 1 covers essential controls that protect all AWS accounts, while Level 2 adds stricter configurations for high-security or regulated environments.
Can the benchmark be automated? Yes. AWS Config and Security Hub provide pre-built rules that evaluate compliance automatically and integrate with tools like Complyance for centralized reporting.
How often should benchmarks be reviewed? At least twice per year, or whenever AWS releases new services or updates that could affect control applicability.
