CIS Controls v8·Control 4.3·critical·Component: Protect

What this control requires

Configure automatic session locking on enterprise assets after a defined period of inactivity. For general purpose operating systems, the period must not exceed 15 minutes. For mobile end-user devices, the period must not exceed 2 minutes.
— CIS Controls v8, Control 4.3

In plain English

Configure automatic session locking on enterprise assets after a defined period of inactivity. In practice, this means you can prove you configure end user-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 critical in the source catalogue. Treat gaps here as production incidents in the risk register, not housekeeping.

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 Protect, the assessor will trace your implementation back to the catalogue reference (Control 4.3) 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.

Configuration Management

Policy-as-code. Codify the control as Service Control Policies (AWS), Azure Policy initiatives, or Organisation Policy (GCP) so the platform enforces what the document promises.

IaC. Gate Terraform / Pulumi / CloudFormation changes with Checkov / tfsec / OPA so misconfigurations never reach production.

Drift. Run a CSPM (Wiz / Prisma / Defender for Cloud / Security Command Center) over every account and route findings to a single risk register.

Operational checklist

  • Configure. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Protect. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Scope: end user, mobile, network, enterprise.

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: Configure Automatic Session Locking on Enterprise Assets.

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.
  • Manual cloud-console changes that never make it back to Terraform — drift accumulates until the next outage forces a reconciliation.
  • Default-allow egress rules; East-West traffic with no segmentation; jump hosts on the public internet with password auth.

Related controls in CIS Controls v8

References

Topics: endpoint securitycloud postureendpoint protectionconfiguration managementnetwork security