About

To unlock full feature and content access for CIS-CAT Pro Assessor, Members are required to download and apply their organization’s SecureSuite license from https://workbench.cisecurity.org.

If a valid license is not present in the defined location, CIS-CAT Pro Assessor will be limited to Lite functionality where the following restrictions apply:

  • Outputs only HTML format. Other formats such as csv, post to Dashboard, json, and txt are blocked. Commands utilized requesting this output will be ignored.
  • Assessment allowed only for limited set of CIS Benchmark automated assessment content, even if additional content is present. Allowed assessments:
    • Google Chrome
    • Microsoft Windows 10, domain joined
    • Microsoft Windows 10, standalone
    • Microsoft Windows 11, domain joined
    • Ubuntu

Installation

  1. Login to CIS WorkBench
  2. Navigate to the Downloads menu item
  3. Select Download License button

  1. From the “Licenses” tab, select the Download button next to your key
    • NOTE: Ensue that JavaScript is unblocked on your browser if you do not see that the file has downloaded.
  2. Navigate to the downloaded files and extract/unzip the contents
  3. Open the folder where the extracted file was stored, and copy all of the license.xml file into the "license" folder of CIS-CAT Pro Assessor v4. This file location can be overridden by the "ciscat.license.filepath" property in the assessor-cli.properties file.

See example of where the files should be placed within the CIS-CAT folder structure.

Verification Method

CIS-CAT Assessor v4 validate a Member’s license at the beginning of each command execution performed from the GUI or the command line. The license will attempt to validate against a CIS-hosted location via SSL port 8883 first. If the host machine is unable to validate online, CIS-CAT will validate the license from the key that is present in the specified location. By default, the location is in the “License” folder. To modify this location, specify a different location using the ciscat.license.filepath property in the assessor-cli.properties (v4 Assessor).

The method utilized to validate the license will be present in the assessor-cli.log when producing an INFO level log.

Renewal

The license file will expire when your SecureSuite Membership expires. Once your SecureSuite Membership renewal has been processed, a new license file bundle will be available in WorkBench. Download an updated license by following the initial license installation instructions, replacing the existing license file.