Hardened Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 AMI - PCI DSS Compliance

This is a repackaged software product wherein additional charges apply for PCI DSS security hardening.

Deploy a production-ready RHEL 9 AMI with PCI DSS security hardening applied out of the box. This image is built for organizations that process, store, or transmit payment card data and need to demonstrate compliance with PCI DSS best practices without spending weeks on manual configuration.

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 base image with security hardening pre-applied
• PCI DSS benchmark configurations addressing access control, audit logging, and system integrity
• SELinux set to enforcing mode for mandatory access control
• SSH hardening with root login disabled and protocol restrictions
• Auditd pre-configured for security event logging and audit trail generation
• Unnecessary services and default accounts disabled to reduce attack surface
• Filesystem permissions hardened per PCI DSS requirements

The hardening applied to this image addresses multiple PCI DSS requirement areas:

• Requirement 2 - Vendor-supplied defaults removed; system hardened beyond stock configuration
• Requirement 5 - System integrity protections enabled
• Requirement 8 - Access control and authentication restrictions applied
• Requirement 10 - Audit logging configured to capture security-relevant events

Hardening is applied at the operating system level. Application-level security, network segmentation, and encryption of cardholder data in transit remain the buyer's responsibility.

This hardened AMI works with key AWS services to support your compliance and operational workflows:

• Amazon CloudWatch - Monitor system metrics and log events from the hardened instance
• AWS Systems Manager - Manage patching and configuration compliance at scale
• Amazon Inspector - Run vulnerability assessments against the deployed instance
• AWS CloudTrail - Capture API activity for audit and governance purposes
• AWS Config - Track configuration changes and evaluate compliance rules

An e-commerce company deploys this AMI as the base image for servers within their cardholder data environment (CDE). The hardened RHEL 9 instance runs inside an isolated VPC with restricted security groups. During their annual QSA audit, the team demonstrates that OS-level PCI DSS controls were applied at launch, reducing remediation findings and accelerating audit completion.

1. Subscribe to this listing and select your preferred instance type
2. Launch the AMI within your target VPC and configure security groups
3. Connect via SSH using your key pair (root login is disabled; use the default ec2-user)
4. Verify hardening by reviewing applied configurations and running a compliance scan
5. Integrate with AWS CloudWatch and Systems Manager for ongoing monitoring

• This is a repackaged software product with additional charges for PCI DSS security hardening.
• This image provides OS-level hardening only; application hardening and data encryption are the buyer's responsibility.
• Ongoing patching and re-hardening after system modifications are the buyer's responsibility.
• Verify compatibility with your target instance type before production deployment.
• A valid Red Hat subscription may be required depending on your AWS account configuration.
• Modifications to hardened configurations may affect compliance posture.
• DISA STIG compliance requires more than technical controls at the operating system layer. Customers remain responsible for organizational, procedural, and additional infrastructure controls.

Madarson IT builds security-hardened cloud images designed to work right out of the box. Our certified images are kept up to date, follow industry standards, and are built to reduce the time between deployment and compliance readiness.

Madarson IT also offers hardened and custom images across AWS, GCP, and Azure Marketplace, covering multiple operating systems and compliance frameworks.

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.