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BUYER GUIDE · PCI DSS ON AWS

How to evaluate a PCI-focused hardened AMI for AWS.

The best image is not the one with the loudest compliance claim. It is the one whose scope, evidence, maintenance, compatibility, and support you can defend.

LAST REVIEWED · AUGUST 4, 2026

01 · COVERAGE

An AMI addresses one layer of a larger PCI-scoped system.

IMAGE CAN HELP WITH

  • Operating-system access and password policy
  • System auditing and logging configuration
  • Service reduction and secure defaults
  • Cryptographic operating-system settings
  • Repeatable x86 or ARM image deployment

YOUR ENVIRONMENT STILL OWNS

  • PCI scope and cardholder-data flows
  • Application code and dependencies
  • VPC, IAM, network, and cloud-service configuration
  • Monitoring operations and incident response
  • Evidence retention and assessor validation

02 · BUYER CHECKLIST

Eight questions that expose the difference between a listing and a maintained product.

  1. Which exact PCI DSS requirement areas can the image help address?

    Ask for a mapping with explicit scope and limitations.

  2. What evidence corresponds to the release?

    Look for a hardening manifest, assessment context, SBOM, exceptions, and patch history.

  3. How often is a new image published?

    Separate a recurring release policy from a dated promise that can silently expire.

  4. What happens for critical upstream fixes?

    Ask whether an expedited path exists and whether a response-time SLA is actually published.

  5. How do customers adopt updates?

    A new AMI does not patch running instances. Understand migration and validation expectations.

  6. Will hardening break the workload?

    Test identity, agents, logging, cryptography, ports, services, and deployment automation.

  7. Are x86 and ARM independent products?

    Confirm architecture-specific links, compatible instances, and evidence.

  8. Who answers product questions?

    Distinguish image support from AWS infrastructure support, consulting, and assessor services.

03 · EVALUATION SEQUENCE

  1. 01
    Choose the OS and architecture.

    Start with application compatibility and procurement requirements.

  2. 02
    Review the Marketplace record.

    Confirm current pricing, regions, instance compatibility, support terms, and version details.

  3. 03
    Launch outside production.

    Use the same bootstrap, agents, policies, and workload dependencies planned for production.

  4. 04
    Validate the whole workload.

    Test function, security, logging, operations, and evidence with engineering and the assessor.

  5. 05
    Record the adopted release.

    Preserve image identity, evidence, exceptions, approvals, and rollout history.

04 · PRIMARY SOURCES