This product has charges associated with it for PCI DSS security hardening. Pre-hardened RHEL 8 AMI by Madarson IT with PCI DSS security benchmarks applied out of the box, ready for organizations handling payment card data.
This is a repackaged software product wherein additional charges apply for PCI DSS security hardening.
Madarson IT - PCI DSS Hardened Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 AMI
Launch a production-ready, security-hardened Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 instance with PCI DSS benchmarks pre-applied. This AMI eliminates manual hardening effort by delivering a pre-configured RHEL 8 environment optimized for organizations that process, store, or transmit payment card data.
What Is Included
Latest Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 image with PCI DSS security benchmarks applied
Pre-configured hardening measures aligned with PCI DSS best practices
Optimized security settings designed to reduce attack surfaces out of the box
Ready-to-deploy AMI built and maintained by Madarson IT
Who This Is For
This AMI is designed for retailers, e-commerce businesses, financial institutions, and service providers that need to maintain PCI DSS-compliant infrastructure. It is particularly valuable for teams that want to reduce the time and complexity of manually hardening RHEL 8 systems to meet Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard requirements.
Key Benefits
Compliance Readiness: The image addresses PCI DSS requirements related to system hardening (Requirement 2 - Do not use vendor-supplied defaults for system passwords and other security parameters) and access controls (Requirement 8 - Identify and authenticate access to system components). Hardening measures help organizations demonstrate compliance during audits.
Reduced Attack Surface: Unnecessary services are disabled, security parameters are tuned, and system configurations are tightened to limit potential weaknesses that make systems vulnerable to unauthorized access, denial of service, and other cyberthreats.
Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability Protection: The hardening process addresses controls that protect sensitive payment data across all three pillars of information security.
Out-of-the-Box Readiness: Madarson IT certified images are built to work immediately upon launch, reducing deployment time compared to manual hardening of a base RHEL 8 image.
AWS Integration
This AMI is designed to work within your existing AWS architecture:
Amazon CloudWatch - Monitor system health and security events from your hardened instances
AWS Systems Manager - Manage patching and configuration compliance at scale
AWS CloudTrail - Maintain audit logs of API activity for compliance evidence
Amazon Inspector - Run vulnerability assessments against your deployed instances to validate hardening effectiveness
Deployment Scenario
A mid-size e-commerce company processing payment card transactions launches this AMI to host their payment processing application tier. Instead of spending days manually hardening a base RHEL 8 image and validating each PCI DSS control, the team launches the pre-hardened AMI, connects it to their VPC, and runs a compliance scan to verify the security posture before their quarterly PCI DSS audit.
Getting Started
Subscribe to this product on AWS Marketplace
Launch an EC2 instance using the Madarson IT RHEL 8 PCI DSS Hardened AMI
Connect via SSH using your configured key pair
Verify hardening by reviewing applied configurations and running a compliance scan
Integrate with AWS CloudWatch and Systems Manager for ongoing monitoring
Deploy your application stack on top of the hardened base
Requirements and Limitations
This is a repackaged software product with additional charges for PCI DSS security hardening.
The hardened image helps address PCI DSS compliance needs but does not guarantee full PCI DSS compliance on its own. Additional application-layer controls, network segmentation, and organizational policies are required for complete compliance.
Organizations should validate the hardening configuration against their specific compliance requirements.
Buyers should verify compatibility with their target EC2 instance types before deploying at scale.
Application-layer controls and any findings requiring manual action remain the buyer's responsibility.
About Madarson IT
Madarson IT specializes in security-hardened operating system images across multiple cloud marketplaces. Madarson IT certified images follow industry standards, are continuously updated to address emerging vulnerabilities, and are built to work right out of the box.
Madarson IT also offers hardened and custom images across AWS, GCP, and Azure Marketplace, covering multiple operating systems and compliance frameworks.
Disclaimer
Red Hat, Inc. holds the trademarks for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and associated branding. Madarson IT does not provide commercial licenses for Red Hat products.
Highlights
PCI DSS Compliance Readiness: This pre-hardened RHEL 8 AMI addresses PCI DSS requirements including Requirement 2 (system hardening - eliminating vendor-supplied defaults) and Requirement 8 (access controls). Launch a compliance-ready instance without spending days manually configuring security settings. Integrates with AWS CloudTrail for audit logging and Amazon Inspector for vulnerability validation.
Reduced Attack Surface Out of the Box: Unnecessary services are disabled, security parameters are tuned, and system configurations are tightened to protect against unauthorized access, denial of service, and other cyberthreats. The hardening process limits potential weaknesses across Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability - helping organizations demonstrate security controls during PCI DSS audits.
Built and Maintained by Madarson IT: Madarson IT certified images follow industry standards and are continuously updated to address emerging vulnerabilities. Designed for retailers, e-commerce businesses, financial institutions, and service providers handling payment card data. Works with Amazon CloudWatch for monitoring and AWS Systems Manager for ongoing configuration management.
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.
You pay by the hour for a security-hardened Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 image, billed by the EC2 instance type you run. Each dimension maps to a specific instance size across families like general purpose (m, t), compute (c), memory (r), storage (d, i, h), and GPU (g, p). Larger instances cost more per hour because they carry more compute, memory, or specialized resources. No fixed term applies; charges accrue only while an instance runs. The software layer stays the same across all sizes, so your choice of instance drives the hourly rate.
Top-of-mind questions for buyers
What does one billed unit represent for this listing?
One unit is one running EC2 instance of the chosen type, metered per hour. Each instance you launch bills separately at its instance-type rate. Running ten instances of the same type accrues ten times the hourly charge. The count follows how many instances run, not users or data volume.
Am I charged when an instance is stopped or paused?
The hourly software charge accrues only while an instance runs. Fully stopped instances do not accrue this software fee. Note that underlying AWS storage and other resources may still bill separately even when the instance is stopped. Charges resume when you start the instance again.
Does the hardened image add features that differ between instance types?
No. The security-hardened Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 image is the same across every instance type. It carries compliance-aligned configurations and receives regular security updates. Your instance-type choice changes only the compute, memory, storage, or GPU resources and the hourly rate, not the software features.
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Legal
Vendor terms and conditions
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).
Content disclaimer
Vendors are responsible for their product descriptions and other product content. AWS does not warrant that vendors' product descriptions or other product content are accurate, complete, reliable, current, or error-free.
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
Hardened Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 image with PCI DSS Benchmarks.
Select the instance and choose Connect.
Choose the EC2 Instance Connect tab.
For Connection type, choose Connect using EC2 Instance Connect.
Access the ec2 with the default username: "ec2-user"
For questions about this hardened RHEL 8 AMI, private offers, audit documentation, or compliance needs, contact the Madarson IT team at info@madarsonit.com.
Support Scope
Madarson IT provides support for issues related to the security hardening applied to this image, including questions about the PCI DSS benchmarks implemented and configuration guidance.
Getting Help
When contacting support, please include your AWS account ID, instance ID, and a description of the issue you are experiencing.
AWS infrastructure support
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.
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