Compliance is an important aspect when it comes to dealing with the Federal US government especially for people unfamiliar with certain terms.
NIST background
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) create a series of documents known as Special Publications (SP). The NIST SP 800 regulation covers computer security and the NIST 800-53 revision 4, Security and Privacy Controls for Federal Information Systems and Organizations spell out data security requirements, which are mandatory for data systems in the US Federal Government. Among other things, the 800-series documents cover aspects of data security and risk mitigation (SP 800-37 revision 1 and SP 800-30 revision 1) and going concern of businesses (SP 800-34 revision 1).
Importance of NIST and FISMA
The Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 (FISMA) and Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014 (FISMA) mandate that US government agencies have to execute data security controls by using a federal risk-based approach to data security supervision.
Reporting of compliance yearly is mandatory for the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The main concern for compliance in FISMA is covered in NIST SP 800-53.
It is necessary for agencies to comply with NIST standards and regulations to become compliant with FISMA standards. In addition, non-government firms that manage the data systems on behalf of government agencies may also be called upon to report their compliance against FISMA.
Aim of FedRAMP
The main objective of FedRAMP is to allow government agencies benefit from cloud services while reducing the duplication of data security function. Cloud Service Providers provide cloud products like laaS, PaaS, and SaaS to government agencies.
It is necessary for these systems to comply with regulations of FISMA. FedRAMP offers a process of maximizing efficiency for autonomous security monitoring so that firms than partake in a cloud-first strategy.
In 2016, FedRAMP came up with a new fast technique that revolutionized how the FedRAMP Provisional Authorizations (P-ATO) Joint Authorization Board (JAB) are carried out with the aim of hastening the provisional authority to operate. The main objective was to design a smoother authorization management program that ascertained more predictable timetables for security authorization package monitoring.
FedRAMP relies on several of NIST SP documents such as the 800-53 that serves as information database of system controls and the 800-37 that works to mitigate risk. This streamlined process is deliberate to concentrate on which regulations are managed by the CSP and those managed by agencies purchasing cloud services. For instance, a SaaS provider gives similar shared physical security protections to all the users of its system. SaaS enables the use of one data center or hosting facility, which provides a low risk for users subscribed to that provider. In addition, each government agency that acquires the use of cloud services from the SaaS platform is in charge of executing adequate passwords controls that will ensure their data is properly secured.
A CSP that desires to contract services to the federal government must determine which controls are important to the services being contracted and hire a qualified third-party assessment organization to carry out an assessment that will indicate impact level. After this assessment has been carried out on the behalf on one federal agency, other agencies may use the findings of the said assessment essentially reducing expense and time.
The Bottom Line
NIST offers standards and regulations for risk mitigation, data security and privacy standards for data systems that the federal government uses. FedRAMP, on the other hand, employs NIST guidelines in its own structure to assist US federal agencies to use cloud services more effectively and safely.
FedRAMP is however not a mandatory requirement for private firms that do not work directly with federal government agencies. It is however recommended for companies that employ cloud computing for the purpose of efficiency and consistency.
Employing the use of certain software platforms can smoothen the process of compliance for government agencies as well as the third-party service providers. This system has pre-loaded FedRAMP and NIST SP 800-53 controls on its platform. The software can assist organizations in leveraging present work from other regulations to be FedRAMP compliant and also assist a firm’s assembly evidence for their 3PAO via our audit module.
