Server Hardening Request Form

Strengthen Your IT Infrastructure with Professional Server Hardening

Server security is non-negotiable in today's threat landscape. Whether you're managing on-premise infrastructure, cloud environments, or hybrid systems, a server hardening request form streamlines how your IT and security teams assess, prioritize, and execute critical security configurations across your server estate.

This Server Hardening Request Form template is built for IT departments, managed service providers, security operations teams, and infrastructure managers who need a standardized, repeatable process for implementing security baselines, removing unnecessary services, configuring comprehensive audit logging, and verifying compliance with industry standards like CIS, NIST, PCI DSS, HIPAA, and SOC 2.

Why IT teams choose Paperform for server hardening requests

Traditional server hardening workflows often involve lengthy email threads, unclear requirements, and inconsistent implementations across environments. This template replaces scattered documentation with a single, structured intake process that captures all the essential details your security and infrastructure teams need to harden servers correctly the first time.

Paperform's conditional logic ensures requesters only see relevant questions based on their server type, operating system, and compliance requirements—keeping the form streamlined while gathering comprehensive technical details. IT professionals can select from predefined security baselines (CIS Benchmarks, DISA STIGs, vendor-specific hardening guides), specify which unnecessary services to disable, define audit logging requirements, and indicate compliance frameworks that must be verified.

The form integrates seamlessly with your existing IT service management stack. Connect submissions to ServiceNow, Jira Service Management, or Freshservice to automatically create tickets with complete hardening specifications. Use Stepper (stepper.io) to build automated workflows that route requests to the appropriate security or infrastructure team, trigger approval processes for production systems, schedule hardening maintenance windows, and send status updates as work progresses.

Built for security-conscious IT operations

This template addresses the full spectrum of server hardening requirements across diverse environments:

• Security baseline selection: Choose from industry-standard frameworks including CIS Benchmarks (Level 1/Level 2), DISA STIGs, NIST 800-53 controls, vendor hardening guides, or custom organizational baselines
• Operating system coverage: Support for Windows Server, Linux distributions (RHEL, Ubuntu, CentOS, Debian), Unix variants, and cloud-optimized OS images
• Unnecessary service removal: Identify and document services, ports, protocols, and software components to disable or remove to reduce attack surface
• Audit logging configuration: Specify logging requirements for security events, access attempts, configuration changes, privileged operations, and compliance-relevant activities
• Compliance verification: Align hardening activities with regulatory and industry standards including PCI DSS, HIPAA, SOC 2, ISO 27001, FedRAMP, and GDPR
• Environment specification: Differentiate requirements across development, staging, and production environments with appropriate urgency and change control
• Rollback planning: Document backup and rollback procedures to ensure safe implementation

Automate your security operations workflow

Once a hardening request is submitted through Paperform, Stepper becomes your automation engine for the entire remediation lifecycle. Build workflows that:

• Route requests to specialized teams based on OS type, environment, or compliance framework
• Trigger automated pre-hardening assessments using vulnerability scanning or configuration management tools
• Create change requests in your ITSM platform with complete hardening specifications
• Send approval notifications to security leads or change advisory boards for production systems
• Schedule maintenance windows based on business impact and system criticality
• Update CMDB records with new security configurations and baseline versions
• Generate post-hardening compliance reports and archive them in your documentation system
• Send completion notifications with verification evidence to the original requester

This level of automation transforms server hardening from a manual, inconsistent process into a standardized, auditable security practice that scales across your infrastructure.

Who benefits from this template

IT security teams use this form to enforce consistent hardening standards across all server deployments, ensuring every system meets minimum security baselines before going into production.

Infrastructure engineers and system administrators rely on it to clearly communicate hardening requirements, track hardening tasks alongside other infrastructure work, and maintain documentation of security configurations.

Managed service providers implement it to standardize hardening services across multiple clients, demonstrate due diligence in security operations, and provide transparent hardening workflows that clients can track.

Compliance officers appreciate the built-in compliance framework mapping, which ensures server configurations support audit requirements and regulatory obligations without additional documentation overhead.

DevOps and platform teams integrate it into infrastructure-as-code pipelines and automated provisioning workflows, ensuring new server instances are hardened according to organizational standards from day one.

Security, compliance, and enterprise-ready

Paperform is SOC 2 Type II compliant and offers enterprise features that IT security professionals require: SSO for centralized authentication, roles and permissions for segregation of duties, data residency controls for regulatory compliance, and comprehensive audit logging of all form submissions and changes.

All server hardening requests are encrypted in transit and at rest, with granular access controls ensuring only authorized personnel can view sensitive infrastructure details. You can configure submission retention policies, set up scheduled exports to your security information and event management (SIEM) system, and maintain complete audit trails for compliance verification.

Get started in minutes

Simply customize this template with your organization's security baselines, compliance requirements, and approval workflows. Embed it in your IT portal, link it from your intranet, or share it directly with infrastructure and development teams. As hardening requests flow in, you'll have structured, actionable data that drives consistent security outcomes across your entire server infrastructure.

Whether you're managing a handful of critical servers or thousands of instances across multi-cloud environments, this server hardening request form brings clarity, consistency, and compliance to one of IT security's most essential practices.