Identifying CIS Hardened Image Versions

Owned by Allan Cornwell, created
Last updated: Mar 26, 2024
3 min read

Product Name

CIS Hardened Images®

Product Version

(all)

Date

Feb 28, 2024

Problem

The approach to determine the version number of a currently deployed CIS Hardened Image varies by Cloud Service Provider. This article provides the unique steps for each major vendor.

General information regarding CIS version numbering can be referenced in the following KB article:

Solution

CIS Hardened Images on Amazon Web Services (AWS)

GUI

Using the AWS EC2 Dashboard, navigate to the running instance and reference the “AMI name“ or “AMI location” property fields.

Hardened Images in AWS released after March 2024 are identified by a two-digit number representing the month that the image was published in; for example, v01 indicates an image released in January, and v12 an image released in December of this year.

In the below example screenshot, the image version is v03, indicating it was published in March:

aws_newver.png

CLI

Using the AWS CLI, run the following command, replacing MY-INSTANCE-ID with your respective instance ID:

aws ec2 describe-instances --instance-ids MY-INSTANCE-ID --query 'Reservations[*].Instances[*].ImageId' --output text | xargs -I {} aws ec2 describe-images --image-ids {} --query 'Images[*].Name' --output text

The output will contain the full AMI name and version indicator of your CIS Hardened Image:

cli_aws.png

CIS Hardened Images on Microsoft Azure

CLI

Using the Azure CLI, run the following command, replacing MY-DISK-ID and MY-RESOURCE-GROUP with their respective values:

az disk show --resource-group MY-RESOURCE-GROUP --name MY-DISK-ID

The output will contain the image version under the imageReference → id property.
In the below example screenshot, the image version is 3.0.2:

Due to platform requirements, CIS Hardened Images on Azure feature three version points (ex. 3.0.2) instead of the four present on other CSPs (ex. 3.0.0.2). The last digit indicates OS-level updates, while the first two indicate changes to the CIS Benchmark on which the Hardened Image is based.

CIS Hardened Images on Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

GUI

Using the Compute Engine dashboard, select the CIS Hardened Image instance. The version number will be displayed under the “Storage” → “Boot Disk” section in the “Image” column.

In the below example screenshot, the CIS Hardened Image version number is 1.0.0.11:

CLI

Using Google Cloud Shell, run the following command, replacing MY-INSTANCE-ID and MY-ZONE with their respective values:

gcloud compute instances describe MY-INSTANCE-ID --zone=MY-ZONE --format='value(disks[0].source)' | xargs gcloud compute disks describe --format='value(sourceImage)'

The output will contain the image version at the end of the returned URL:

CIS Hardened Images on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)

GUI

The Hardened Image version is displayed on the OCI dashboard, or as a drop-down selector when first instantiating a new Hardened Image.

In the below example screenshot, the CIS Hardened Image version number is 2.0.0.5:

Keywords; hardened image version number aws gcp azure oci

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