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From Policy to Practice: Built-In CIS Benchmarks on Azure - Flexible, Hybrid-Ready

pallakatos

Microsoft

Nov 18, 2025

Secure by default with built-in CIS Benchmarks - adjust parameters, define exceptions, and enforce them consistently across cloud and on-premises with Azure Arc

Security is more important than ever. The industry-standard for secure machine configuration is the Center for Internet Security (CIS) Benchmarks. These benchmarks provide consensus-based prescriptiv...

Updated Jul 29, 2026

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jikuja

Iron Contributor

Oct 25, 2026

This milestone reflects a close collaboration between Microsoft and the CIS to bring industry-standard security guidance into Azure as a built-in capability.

I wonder when the Azure CIS benchmark policy initiatives are being updated:

CIS: Microsoft Azure Foundations (6.0.0)
Azure: CIS Azure Foundations v3.0.0
- only policy removals after initial release

pallakatos
Microsoft
Oct 29, 2026
Appreciate the feedback - those benchmarks are rather Azure specific - some of the controls inside of those available under Azure Policy and some under Defender for Cloud - this article is quite explicit about OS level benchmarks and how you can audit and manage compliance at scale for your workloads in your hybrid environments.
- jikuja
  Iron Contributor
  Nov 09, 2026
  Let's hope DfC situation is corrected soon.
  It is really nice to see viable option to replace CIS hardened images on VMs.