This product has charges associated with the pre-built hardening to the CIS Benchmarks™ and recurring maintenance. The CIS Hardened Images® are hardened in accordance with the associated CIS Benchmarks, an industry best practice for secure configuration. Reduce cost, time, and risk by building your AWS solution with CIS AMIs.
The CIS Hardened Image Level 1 on ECS-Optimized Amazon Linux 2023 is a pre-configured image built by the Center for Internet Security (CIS®) for use on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) and optimized for use with Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS). It is a pre-configured, security-hardened image that aligns with the robust security recommendations, the CIS Benchmarks, making it easier for organizations to meet regulatory requirements.
Not only is this image pre-hardened to the CIS Benchmarks guidance, but it is also patched monthly in alignment with the updates from the software vendor.
Highlights
Hardened according to a Level 1 CIS Benchmark that is developed in a consensus-based process and that is accepted by government, business, industry, and academia.
Helps with compliance to PCI DSS, FedRAMP, DoD Cloud Computing SRG, FISMA, select NIST publications, and more.
Pre-configured to align with industry best practices that are developed and supported by CIS, this image has hardened account and local policies, firewall configuration, and computer-based and user-based administrative templates
AWS Marketplace now accepts line of credit payments through the PNC Vendor Finance program. This program is available to select AWS customers in the US, excluding NV, NC, ND, TN, & VT.
Pricing is based on actual usage, with charges varying according to how much you consume. Subscriptions have no end date and may be canceled any time. Alternatively, you can pay upfront for a contract, which typically covers your anticipated usage for the contract duration. Any usage beyond contract will incur additional usage-based costs.
Additional AWS infrastructure costs may apply. Use the AWS Pricing Calculator to estimate your infrastructure costs.
If you are an AWS Free Tier customer with a free plan, you are eligible to subscribe to this offer. You can use free credits to cover the cost of eligible AWS infrastructure. See AWS Free Tier for more details. If you created an AWS account before July 15th, 2025, and qualify for the Legacy AWS Free Tier, Amazon EC2 charges for Micro instances are free for up to 750 hours per month. See Legacy AWS Free Tier for more details.
You pay by the hour for this pre-hardened virtual machine image, billed based on the Amazon EC2 instance type you run. Each dimension maps to a specific instance type, so pricing scales with the size and family of compute you choose. Larger instances (like 48xlarge or metal variants) cost more per hour than smaller ones (like nano, micro, or large). Instance families cover general purpose, compute, memory, storage, GPU, and machine learning workloads. You select the instance that fits your workload, and the software hourly rate applies alongside standard AWS infrastructure charges.
Top-of-mind questions for buyers
What does one hourly unit cover for this pre-hardened image?
One unit is the software running on a single Amazon EC2 instance for one hour. The rate matches the instance type you launch, such as m5.large or c8i.48xlarge. Each running instance meters separately. You pay the software rate plus the standard AWS charge for that instance.
Am I charged the software rate when I stop or pause the instance?
The hourly software charge applies only while the instance runs. Stopped instances do not accrue the software rate. You may still pay AWS for attached storage on a stopped instance, but the pre-hardened image itself meters running hours only.
What drives my total cost when I run this image?
Two charges apply together on the same bill. The software hourly rate is set by the instance type you pick. The AWS infrastructure charge for that same instance applies alongside it. Both scale with instance size and family, so choosing a smaller instance lowers both charges.
www.cisecurity.org
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Vendor refund policy
Refunds through AWS are not available at this time. You will only be billed for actual time of instance use. As with all CIS security products, our aim is always 100 percent customer/member satisfaction.
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Legal
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Upon subscribing to this product, you must acknowledge and agree to the terms and conditions outlined in the vendor's End User License Agreement (EULA).
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An AMI is a virtual image that provides the information required to launch an instance. Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) instances are virtual servers on which you can run your applications and workloads, offering varying combinations of CPU, memory, storage, and networking resources. You can launch as many instances from as many different AMIs as you need.
Version release notes
Monthly updates
Additional details
Usage instructions
No sensitive information supplied by customers will be stored outside this instance. No data encryption configuration is applicable to this instance. You can encrypt the instance EBS volume per standard EC2 processes. No programmatic system credentials and cryptographic keys are used by this instance. Launch the instance via the AWS Marketplace or EC2 console. Navigate to your Amazon EC2 console and verify that you're in the correct region. Choose instance and select your launched instance. Select the server to display your metadata page and choose the Status checks tab at the bottom of the page to review if your status checks passed or failed. Connect using SSH. Use ec2-user as the username. Immediately apply latest security updates to the instance.
Support
Vendor support
Questions, feedback, and support accessing CIS-developed AMIs is provided by contacting
AWS Support is a one-on-one, fast-response support channel that is staffed 24x7x365 with experienced and technical support engineers. The service helps customers of all sizes and technical abilities to successfully utilize the products and features provided by Amazon Web Services.
This product has charges associated with the pre-built hardening to the CIS Benchmarks™ and recurring maintenance. The CIS Hardened Images® are hardened in accordance with the associated CIS Benchmarks, an industry best practice for secure configuration. Reduce cost, time, and risk by building your AWS solution with CIS AMIs.
This product has charges associated with the pre-built hardening to the CIS Benchmarks™ and recurring maintenance. The CIS Hardened Images® are hardened in accordance with the associated CIS Benchmarks, an industry best practice for secure configuration. Reduce cost, time, and risk by building your AWS solution with CIS AMIs.
This product has charges associated with the pre-built hardening to the CIS Benchmarks™ and recurring maintenance. The CIS Hardened Images® are hardened in accordance with the associated CIS Benchmarks, an industry best practice for secure configuration. Reduce cost, time, and risk by building your AWS solution with CIS AMIs.
This product has charges associated with the pre-built hardening to the CIS Benchmarks™ and recurring maintenance. The CIS Hardened Images® are hardened in accordance with the associated CIS Benchmarks, an industry best practice for secure configuration. Reduce cost, time, and risk by building your AWS solution with CIS AMIs.
This product has charges associated with the pre-built hardening to the CIS Benchmarks™ and recurring maintenance. The CIS Hardened Images® are hardened in accordance with the associated CIS Benchmarks, an industry best practice for secure configuration. Reduce cost, time, and risk by building your AWS solution with CIS AMIs.
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