Rocky Linux from CIQ – Hardened Now Available on All Three Major Cloud Marketplaces

Hardened Enterprise Linux distribution (RLC-H) leads CIQ’s expanding product portfolio across AWS, Azure and Google Cloud Platform

RENO, Nev. – August 26, 2025 – CIQ, the founding support and services partner of Rocky Linux and a leader in high-performance software infrastructure, today announced that Rocky Linux from CIQ – Hardened (RLC-H) is now available on all three major cloud marketplaces: AWS Marketplace, Microsoft Azure Marketplace and Google Cloud Platform. This hardened Enterprise Linux offering enables organizations to deploy proactively secured, compliant systems while maintaining full compatibility with Enterprise Linux standards.

As the speed, sophistication and volume of attacks on corporate systems accelerate, IT teams struggle to implement effective and consistent Linux security policies across their infrastructure. RLC-H solves this challenge by delivering a pre-hardened, enterprise-grade Linux distribution through a secure supply chain, eliminating the time and complexity of manual security configurations.

The solution delivers:

• System Level Hardening: Minimizes zero-day and common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVE) risks by eliminating potential attack surfaces and common exploit vectors
• Proactive Threat Mitigation: Proactive hardening eliminates entire classes of vulnerabilities, blocking exploits before they happen
• Strong Access Controls: Implements advanced password hashing and stronger password policies
• Attack Detection and Response: Detects sophisticated intrusions with Linux Kernel Runtime Guard (LKRG)
• Simple Deployment: Delivers pre-hardened systems, saving time and resources on security configurations
• Enterprise Compatibility: Maintains full API and ABI compatibility with Enterprise Linux standards

RLC-H is an optimized variant of Enterprise Linux that provides stronger password security, memory corruption detection, kernel integrity checking, and hardened replacements for core packages such as glibc and OpenSSH. The solution includes automated security updates, enhanced threat detection, and premier support from Linux experts who proactively address unique security requirements.

Expanding Cloud Marketplace Presence for Additional CIQ Offerings

Beyond RLC-H, CIQ is broadening marketplace availability for its entire product portfolio. The company’s container-first, performance-intensive computing platform, Fuzzball, is now available on the AWS Marketplace. Additionally, CIQ was named the Endorsed Distribution provider of Rocky Linux on Microsoft Azure, offering both free community editions and Rocky Linux from CIQ (RLC), the company's commercially backed Enterprise Linux distribution, available on the Azure Marketplace. The latest release of RLC, version 9.6, is also available on the Google Cloud Marketplace.

Learn More About RLC-H

• Blog post on systemd-coredump CVE-2025-4598 mitigation with RLC-H
• Additional product detail
• RLC-H solution brief
• Intro video on RLC-H

About CIQ

CIQ is building the next-generation secure and performant software infrastructure stack for the AI era. Founded in 2020 by open source ardent Gregory Kurtzer, CIQ helps organizations simplify, unify and democratize high-performance computing and enterprise IT. CIQ is the founding support and services partner of Rocky Linux and the creator of products like Fuzzball, Warewulf, Ascender and Rocky Linux from CIQ. The company provides scalable, open infrastructure solutions that empower innovation – from the operating system up. Rooted in a community-first philosophy, CIQ is trusted by organizations modernizing for a future defined by data and AI inferencing. Learn more at https://ciq.com.