[BESAdmin-Announcements] Announcing the Beta Release: Universal Checklist for Windows Workstation

[Announcements for BES Administrators]

Hello BigFix Community,

We are excited to announce the beta release of the new Universal Checklist
for Windows Workstation, the next stage of a major initiative to simplify
and streamline compliance management in BigFix.

This is the second release from our new *Universal Checklist initiative*, a
project designed to simplify compliance management by creating single,
platform-specific checklists that work across all supported OS versions.
This initiative will ultimately reduce complexity and improve performance
across your entire environment.

This next stage is focused specifically on Windows Workstation, and here’s
what it means for you today
*What is the Universal Checklist for Windows Workstation?*

The Universal Checklist for Windows Workstation is a consolidated checklist
designed to assess general purpose compliance across all supported Windows
Workstation versions, both Windows Workstation 10 and 11.

The second beta release is a collection of all the checks from CIS and DISA
benchmarks for all the supported Windows Workstations. It allows you to
enforce security configurations across your entire Windows Workstation
environment with a single action.
*Technical Snapshot* Total Fixlets: 627 Fixlets with Remediation: 606
Parameterized
Fixlets : 505 Benchmark Sources: CIS and DISA STIGs Applies To: Windows
Workstation 10 and 11 *Key Benefits in This Beta Release*

•           *Simplified Workflow*: Instead of selecting and managing
multiple checklists for different OS versions (e.g., for 10 and 11), you
can now deploy a single universal checklist to scan all your Windows
Workstation endpoints. This new model eliminates the need to manually
identify, enable, and run multiple OS-specific checklists, significantly
cutting down on configuration time

•           *Version-aware applicability*: The checklist uses version-aware
applicability logic, ensuring checks only apply to relevant OS versions.
*What’s Changing* •          *A Single Checklist Model:* You will now
manage and deploy one checklist for the entire Windows Workstation
platform, rather than one for each OS version and Benchmark. *What Stays
the Same* •          *Custom Checklist Creation:* Your workflow for
creating custom checklists is not changing. You can still use the “Create
Custom Checklist” wizard with the content from this new Universal Checklist.

•           *Parameterization*: The ability to parameterize checks, where
applicable, remains unchanged from the existing process.
•          *Checklist-Level Reporting:* For this beta phase, you will find
the compliance score for the Universal Checklist in the same location as
your other checklists SCA > Reports > Checklists section. or you can access
the same data by running the existing compliance reports in Web Reports
(https://<bigfix_Workstation_name>:8083/webreports)

             *Note:** It is important to note that this report shows the
overall compliance for the general-purpose Universal Checklist itself and
is not a substitute for a benchmark-specific (e.g., CIS or DISA) report.*
•          *Availability of Individual CIS/DISA Checklists:* This Universal
Checklist is for general-purpose use. To generate specific CIS or DISA
compliance reports, you must continue to use the individual CIS and DISA
checklists, which will still be delivered through the existing method. *How
to Get Started*

The Universal Checklist for Windows Workstation (Beta) is available now. To
get started, please subscribe to the content from the [Universal Checklist
for Windows Workstation] external site and deploy it to your desired
endpoints.

To get started:

1. Enable and gather the Universal Checklist for Windows Workstation
external site from the License Overview Dashboard.

2. Create a custom site using Create Custom Checks wizard.

3. Change the default parameters if required.

4. If you use custom sites, update your custom sites accordingly to use the
latest content. You can synchronize your content by using the Synchronize
Custom Checks wizard. For more information, see Using the Synchronize
Custom Checks wizard
<https://help.hcltechsw.com/bigfix/11.0/compliance/Compliance/SCM_Users_Guide/c_using_synchronize_custom_checks_wiz.html>

5. Subscribe all the relevant Windows Workstation (10/11) endpoints.

6. Run SCA import to get the compliance status reports.
*We Need Your Feedback*

As this is a beta release, your feedback is crucial. Please share your
experience, report any issues, and provide suggestions in this forum thread
to help us prepare for the general availability release.
*What’s Next?*

This is just the beginning! Future stages of the Universal Checklist
initiative will include:

•           Expansion to other platforms like macOS, and multiple Linux
distributions.

•           The Universal Checklist will introduce advanced
framework-specific mapping for standards like CIS, DISA, PCI DSS, HIPAA,
and others, enabling capabilities including:

–          Framework-specific scoring

–          Drill-down by Fixlet, device, and group

–          Historical trend analysis

–          Exportable audit reports

Thank you for your continued support and participation.

*– The BigFix Compliance team*
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