Building a Secure Cloud Foundation for Healthcare with CIS

Healthcare organizations face relentless cyber threats and an increasingly complex regulatory landscape. HIPAA, HITRUST CSF, GDPR, DSPT, and ISM impose overlapping requirements, while ransomware attacks and data breaches continue to surge. In 2024 alone, healthcare providers experienced 181 ransomware attacks affecting 25.6 million records, per The HIPAA Journal, with average ransom demands exceeding $5 million.

IT leaders must balance speed, compliance, and resource constraints all while maintaining patient trust. Manual hardening and compliance reporting can take months and introduce errors. So how can healthcare organizations keep pace?

They don’t have to do it alone. By leveraging CIS Hardened Images^® and CIS SecureSuite^® Membership, healthcare organizations can accelerate compliance, strengthen security, and simplify audit readiness.

The Compliance Challenge for Healthcare Agencies

Healthcare is among the most regulated industries worldwide. Compliance frameworks such as HIPAA/HITECH, HITRUST CSF, GDPR, DSPT, and ISM demand strict controls for data protection and cybersecurity.

Key obstacles include:

• Manual hardening is time-consuming and error prone.
• It's difficult to prove compliance to auditors without standardized baselines.
• Multi-cloud environments increase complexity and risk.
• Non-compliance can lead to fines, operational disruptions, and reputational damage.

According to Gartner, 99% of cloud security failures through 2025 will be the customer’s fault resulting from misconfigurations and lack of governance.

How CIS Hardened Images Accelerate Compliance

What Are CIS Hardened Images?

CIS Hardened Images are virtual machine images pre-hardened to CIS Benchmarks^®, which map to the CIS Critical Security Controls^® (CIS Controls ^®) and other frameworks. These images provide a secure, on-demand computing environment across AWS, Azure, GCP, and Oracle in multiple regions.

Benefits for healthcare organizations:

• HIPAA/HITRUST-ready environments in minutes
• Standardized baselines across clouds and regions
• Continuous updates to prevent configuration drift
• Built-in CIS-CAT^® Pro reports for audit evidence

Instead of spending months on manual hardening, healthcare teams can deploy secure cloud instances in minutes, reducing audit findings and improving compliance posture.

Want to learn how CIS Hardened Images can support your cloud security posture management (CSPM) efforts? Check out our video below.

 

Extend Secure Cloud Assurance with CIS SecureSuite Membership

CIS SecureSuite Membership complements CIS Hardened Images by providing:

• Access to CIS Benchmarks in multiple formats for secure configuration
• Compliance mapping tools for HIPAA, HITRUST, NIST, GDPR, and ISM
• CIS CSAT Pro for tracking implementation of the CIS Controls
• Audit-ready reports for evidence packages

Together, CIS Hardened Images and CIS SecureSuite Membership deliver both technical security and documentation support, shortening compliance cycles and enabling faster audits.

Get Started with Healthcare Security in the Cloud

Healthcare organizations can’t afford delays in securing cloud environments or proving compliance. CIS Hardened Images and CIS SecureSuite Membership provide a powerful combination:

• Security in the cloud with pre-hardened, continuously updated images
• Compliance documentation and mapping for streamlined audits

Ready to start building a secure cloud foundation today?