DISA releases the first Ansible STIG

As IT environments become more complex, especially as cloud-native technologies, cloud services and traditional hardware all interact to meet evolving business demands, automation remains a key organizational strategy. Automation helps manage and maintain operations at a greater scale, speed and agility. Greater IT complexity also dovetails with requirements for enhanced cybersecurity postures, with threats and vulnerabilities changing on a near daily basis. Automation and IT security are not mutually exclusive, but a guidebook to effective configurations that help keep operations moving smoothly without compromising IT security needs.

For nearly two decades, Red Hat has been helping both public and private entities adapt to changing IT security requirements and concerns. Red Hat achieves a wide range of cybersecurity validations for our products in global markets and by providing actionable information for organizations to improve their system security footprint.

With this in mind, the first Security Technical Implementation Guide (STIG) for the automation controller in Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is now published and available for download at the Department of Defense (DoD) Cyber Exchange. 

The STIG enables customers to deploy Ansible Automation Platform in accordance with a Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) reference security baseline profile while still driving innovation forward with Red Hat automation. Customers can install and configure Ansible Automation Platform with compliance as a top priority, using best practices that meet the STIG architecture requirements. Using the critical security guidance, organizational approvals will be more attainable to get systems in production for security-conscious computing in a variety of regulated industries, from energy and banking to government and defense. 

This builds on Red Hat’s goal to extend a common IT automation solution that builds on a backbone of validated IT security components wherever organizations operate. This helps to unlock automation as a viable, reliable and innovative IT strategy for managing hybrid clouds at scale, even in sensitive environments. Ansible Automation Platform, by design, delivers enhanced support for organizations across varying industries, varying skill sets and varying environments on their automation journeys. Its flexible foundation, tools and services offer a deeper level of customization and control.

Download the published Ansible STIG now, and learn how you can use Ansible Automation Platform to orchestrate enterprise security systems.