Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

Whenever a government agency, contractor, or subcontractor wants to work with a cloud service provider, they have to find one that upholds the level of cybersecurity, physical security, and authentication that the government sets as standard. Usually, agencies have two options to do this. They can work with a cloud service provider that is FedRAMP authorized, or they can work with one that is FedRAMP Equivalent.

In the past, we’ve talked a lot about the various FedRAMP guidelines required to reach either a single Authority to Operate or a generalized Provisional Authority to Operate. One thing that can be said to be common to all of these is that, in general, you’re talking about FedRAMP Moderate Impact Levels when you discuss these kinds of standards and certification processes. This is because around 80% of cloud service providers and offerings are classified as Moderate impact.

FedRAMP, the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, is a way for cloud service providers to undergo auditing, scrutiny, and testing to validate their security. This security encompasses primarily information security but also user authorization and authentication, physical security, and more.

Recently, the Department of Defense shook up the entire defense industrial base with the release of a memo titled “Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program Moderate Equivalency for Cloud Service Provider’s Cloud Service Offerings.” The memo, aimed at FedRAMP contractors and the CSPs they work with, clarifies the concept of equivalency and what it means to be equivalent to the FedRAMP/CMMC Moderate control standard.

What is the government if not an organization dedicated to the creation of paperwork? All of that paperwork means something, though, and it can range from trivial to vitally important. One of the more important forms, if it’s required for your business or institution to fill out, is the DD2345 form. What is it, what is it used for, do you need one, and how does it interact with CMMC?

The stereotype of the government as a slow-moving behemoth is not ill-fitting, but when it makes adjustments and changes, it does so with deliberation and intent. An excellent example is the ongoing development and evolution of things like security standards. Technology moves much, much faster than the government can respond to or that even most businesses could adjust to without a significant investment or a time delay.

The world advances based on innovation, and innovation can come from anywhere. The trouble is that the current capitalist economic system encourages large corporations to play conservatively with their products and their budgets while working to secure their own positions in their industries. It becomes quite difficult for a new small business to enter the field, especially if they’re trying to enter a field that requires substantial facilities, research, or resources to get established.

The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program has been around for nearly 15 years. In that time, it changed and was updated periodically to keep up with the times. While changes are occasionally made to the underlying security frameworks like FedRAMP, CMMC and the NIST documentation that reviews each security control, there is also communication directly from the Department of Defense and other organizations to issue additional guidance.

Here at Ignyte, we talk a lot about the most common and popular security certifications and frameworks for cloud service providers and others, FedRAMP, CMMC, and their associated NIST publications. These are very important, but they’re far from everything that can be relevant to a CSP or to businesses looking to maintain their security credentials. Most CSPs have to deal with basic PII, CUI, and other forms of protected information that may be treated broadly the same.

FedRAMP is the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, and it’s one of the common security frameworks used by the government, its agencies, and the contractors that work with it. However, it’s not solely restricted to the government: FedRAMP can be used in the private sector just as well. The question is, how does it work if you want to do so, do you need to follow it, and what are the benefits of doing so?