# cis_pdf_parser.py

cis_pdf_parser.py is a python script for parsing CIS Benchmark PDF files from the [Center for Internet Security](https://www.cisecurity.org/cis-benchmarks/) into a CSV file format. As of August 2021, all benchmarks are only published in PDF format, which limits their usability. 

## Use Cases

This parser can be useful for the following use cases:

* This script's Comma Separated Value (CSV) output can be used to enhance security assessment result output from popular industry security assessment tools, which do not always include the Rationale, Audit, Remediation, and CIS Controls fields found in the full PDF version of the benchmark.
* This script can also be used to automate conversion of a CIS Benchmark PDF file upon each new version release, as other file formats are for CIS SecureSuite members only.
* This script's output is simple to further parse by its nature of being comma separated values, and can be ingested by other scripts or processes, such as a process which maps each CIS Control category to the user's chosen operating system benchmarks.

## Setup

cis_pdf_parser.py is dependent upon python3, the fitz, csv, re, logging, and argparse modules, and the script expects a path to a CIS Benchmark .pdf file and a filename to output to.

Run the following:
```
$ pip install -r requirements.txt
```

## Usage

```
$ python3 cis_pdf_parser.py --help
usage: cis_pdf_parser.py [-h] --pdf_file PDF_FILE --out_file OUT_FILE [-l LOG_LEVEL]

Parses CIS Benchmark PDF content into CSV Format

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit

required arguments:
  --pdf_file PDF_FILE   PDF File to parse
  --out_file OUT_FILE   Output file in .csv format
  -l LOG_LEVEL, --log-level LOG_LEVEL
                        Set log level (DEBUG, INFO, etc). Default to INFO
```

## Full Command Example:

```
$ python3 cis_pdf_parser.py --pdf_file CIS_Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux_7_Benchmark_v3.1.1.pdf --out_file rhel_7_controls.csv
```

## Output

The script will parse each page and extract the information corresponding to the following fields:

```
Rule, Profile Applicability, Description, Rationale, Audit, Remediation, CIS Controls
```

## Testing Notes

**Tested against:**

* CIS_Oracle_Linux_7_Benchmark_v3.1.1
* CIS_Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux_8_Benchmark_v1.0.1
* CIS_Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux_7_Benchmark_v3.1.1

You will need provide a copy of or download the latest CIS Benchmark files from the [Center for Internet Security](https://learn.cisecurity.org/benchmarks).

## Security

See [CONTRIBUTING](CONTRIBUTING.md#security-issue-notifications) for more information.

## License

This library is licensed under the MIT-0 License. See the LICENSE file.

## Contributors

* David Bailey, [dbawssec@amazon.com](mailto:dbawssec@amazon.com)
* ThibautB, [thibon](https://github.com/thibon)