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

[Announcements for BES Administrators]

Hello BigFix Community,



We are excited to announce the beta release of the new Universal Checklist
for RHEL, building on our ongoing initiative to simplify and streamline
compliance management in BigFix.



This release represents another milestone in our Universal Checklist
initiative, further advancing our goal of simplifying compliance management
through unified, platform-specific checklists across all supported OS
versions. It is designed to reduce complexity and enhance performance
across your entire environment.



This next stage is focused specifically on RHEL, and here’s what it means
for you today

*What is the Universal Checklist for RHEL?*

The Universal Checklist for RHEL is a consolidated checklist designed to
assess general purpose compliance across all supported RHEL versions, both
RHEL 7, 8, 9 and 10.



The second beta release is a collection of all the checks from CIS and DISA
benchmarks for all the supported RHELs. It allows you to enforce security
configurations across your entire RHEL environment with a single action.

*Technical Snapshot*

Total Fixlets: 669

Fixlets with Remediation:  502

Benchmark Sources: CIS and DISA STIGs

Applies To: RHEL 7, 8, 9 and 10

*Key Benefits in This Beta Release*

   - *Simplified Workflow*: Instead of selecting and managing multiple
   checklists for different OS versions (e.g., for 7, 8, 9 and 10), you can
   now deploy a single universal checklist to scan all your RHEL 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 RHEL 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://\localhost>: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 RHEL (Beta) is available now. To get started,
please subscribe to the content from the [Universal Checklist for RHEL]
external site and deploy it to your desired endpoints.



To get started:



1. Enable and gather the Universal Checklist for RHEL 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 RHEL (7/8/9/10) 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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