FedRAMP Compliance: What You Need to Know?

What is FedRAMP?

FedRAMP is a U.S. government-wide program that delivers a standard approach to the security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring of cloud products and services. Compliance is mandatory for all Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) that hold federal data and are providing or seeking to provide services to federal agencies.

Why Do You Need FedRAMP?

Cloud Service Providers (CSP) must meet FedRAMP requirements in order to do business with US government agencies as part of the “Cloud first policy”. FedRAMP is designed as a “do once, use many” framework to create efficiency in government procurement of cloud services. As part of the program, CSPs pursuing FedRAMP are required to be independently assessed by a Third Party Assessment Organization (3PAO).

How Can CSPs Achieve FedRAMP Authorization?

An accredited and certified Third Party Assessment Organization (3PAO) like the WCG, can perform FedRAMP assessments and assist CSPs and government agencies to meet FedRAMP compliance requirements and regulations. During the FedRAMP certification journey, the 3PAO will evaluate the CSP’s cloud computing systems implementation to ensure transparency between the third party and the government and establish that the provider maintains consistency in their data security strategies. 

The 3PAOs play an essential role in the FedRAMP assessment processes since they are independent. They must evaluate the CSP’s security implementations and provide a detailed risk posture of the cloud security environment for the security authorization decision process. 

In most cases, the 3PAO deploys FedRAMP templates to perform security assessments and authorization. 

What Are the Benefits of FedRAMP Compliance?

Instead of conducting multiple assessments for your cloud services, FedRAMP offers an integrative unified, and comprehensive audit for CSPs. Even though the FedRAMP assessment and certification process is tedious and intensive, it gives qualified CSPs a competitive advantage since they are eligible to work with federal agencies. In addition, investing in the certification creates confidence in the CSPs’ security capabilities among non-government customers. 

Acquiring a FedRAMP certification also demonstrates an organization’s credibility. The certification roadmap consists of three rigorous procedures. To be certified, an agency must first perform a security assessment to ensure conformance to the specified standards and controls. Then, the FedRAMP program grants a security authorization, after which the agency implements an authorization and continuous assessment plan. A successful certification process proves that a CSP has surpassed various cybersecurity tests successfully and is capable of maintaining the relevant security standards.
  

Furthermore, FedRAMP permits agencies to eliminate legacy systems and antiquated hardware. Some agencies use outdated infrastructure because of the lengthy and tedious procedures for getting IT approvals. Fortunately, an essential requirement for participating in the assessment procedure is the elimination of obsolete and redundant infrastructure. Agencies can channel the capital expenditure for the non-essential infrastructure to other critical sectors and cut costs significantly.