CIS Controls v8·Control 13.6·high·Component: Detect

What this control requires

Collect network traffic flow logs and/or network traffic to review and alert upon from network devices.
— CIS Controls v8, Control 13.6

In plain English

Collect network traffic flow logs and/or network traffic to review and alert upon from network devices. In practice, this means you can prove you collect network-level controls on a defined cadence.

Why it matters

The CIS Controls are an industry-vetted, prioritised defence: skipping a safeguard widens the attack surface that the safeguards above and below it assume is closed. Audit frameworks (FedRAMP, PCI DSS, HIPAA) all cite CIS as evidence of due care.

This control is rated high. Auditors expect a named owner, a remediation SLA, and a tooling artefact that evidences continuous operation.

What an auditor looks for

A CIS-aligned reviewer wants to see (a) which Implementation Group you are targeting, (b) a documented owner for the safeguard, and (c) a tooling or process artefact (config, scan output, ticket) that proves the safeguard runs on the cadence the control demands.

Within Detect, the assessor will trace your implementation back to the catalogue reference (Control 13.6) and look for objective evidence on the latest two assessment cycles.

How to implement

Cloud Posture

CSPM. Run Wiz / Prisma / Defender for Cloud / Security Command Center over every account; auto-ticket findings above your accepted-risk threshold.

Endpoint Protection

MDM. Make MDM enrollment a hard gate for device access (Intune compliance + Conditional Access, or Jamf + Okta device trust). Unmanaged devices simply don't get a session token.

EDR. Deploy CrowdStrike / SentinelOne / Defender for Endpoint to every server and laptop; alert on any host that stops sending telemetry for >24h.

Network Security

AWS. VPC Flow Logs to S3, default-deny security groups, AWS Network Firewall for north-south, and Transit Gateway for hub-and-spoke segmentation.

Azure. NSGs with deny-by-default, Azure Firewall Premium with TLS inspection, Private Endpoints for PaaS, and Microsoft Defender for Cloud's secure score for drift.

GCP. VPC Service Controls perimeters around sensitive APIs, Cloud NGFW Enterprise for L7 inspection, Private Service Connect for managed services.

Operational checklist

  • Collect. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Scope: network, logs, network traffic flow logs.

Evidence to collect

  • Infra Scan. Continuous infrastructure-posture telemetry — AWS Config, Azure Policy compliance, GCP Organisation Policy, Wiz / Prisma findings.
  • User Device Scan. MDM compliance state per user device (Intune / Jamf / Workspace ONE).

Infrastructure posture tooling (AWS Config, Azure Policy, Nessus) verifies platform hardening. Endpoint compliance telemetry (Intune, Jamf) proves managed coverage. Focus: Collect Network Traffic Flow Logs.

Common pitfalls

  • Treating CSPM findings as a backlog instead of a hot queue: findings older than the policy SLA accumulate until the auditor asks why.
  • Pilot MDM rollouts that quietly exclude executives or engineers; carving out the highest-risk users is the most common audit failure.
  • Default-allow egress rules; East-West traffic with no segmentation; jump hosts on the public internet with password auth.
  • Manual cloud-console changes that never make it back to Terraform — drift accumulates until the next outage forces a reconciliation.

How it maps to other frameworks

Computed from shared tags, control component and key-operation subjects — handy when you are reconciling controls across an audit.

Related controls in CIS Controls v8

References

Topics: endpoint securitynetwork securitycloud postureendpoint protectionconfiguration management