FedRAMP Authorization Levels and Requirements
FedRAMP offers three authorization levels — Low, Moderate, and High — based on the potential impact of security breaches. Each level requires progressively more stringent security controls from the NIST 800-53 catalog.
Organizations seeking FedRAMP authorization must demonstrate compliance with hundreds of security controls across access control, audit and accountability, configuration management, incident response, and system protection. Cloudanix helps organizations meet these requirements across AWS, Azure, GCP, and OCI environments through automated compliance monitoring and continuous security assessments.
Just-In-Time Access for FedRAMP Access Control Requirements
FedRAMP mandates strict access controls based on NIST 800-53 AC controls, including AC-2 (Account Management), AC-3 (Access Enforcement), AC-6 (Least Privilege), and AC-17 (Remote Access). Cloudanix's Just-In-Time (JIT) access provides time-bound, temporary privileged access across multi-cloud federal systems.
JIT access eliminates standing administrative privileges, enforces approval workflows for sensitive access, maintains comprehensive audit trails required for FedRAMP assessments, and automatically revokes access after designated time periods. This zero-standing-privileges approach directly supports FedRAMP's continuous monitoring requirements and simplifies annual assessment processes.
Database Activity Monitoring (DAM) for FedRAMP Audit Requirements
FedRAMP's Audit and Accountability (AU) controls require comprehensive logging and monitoring of system activities. AU-2, AU-3, AU-6, and AU-12 mandate that organizations capture, protect, and analyze audit records across all information systems.
Cloudanix's DAM solution provides real-time monitoring of database access activities across AWS RDS, Azure SQL Database, Google Cloud SQL, and Oracle Cloud databases hosting federal data. DAM captures detailed audit records, detects anomalous database queries, alerts on suspicious activities, and maintains tamper-evident logs that satisfy FedRAMP's stringent audit requirements.
Comprehensive Identity Management for FedRAMP IA Controls
FedRAMP requires rigorous Identification and Authentication (IA) controls for both human users and non-human entities. Modern federal cloud systems include thousands of identities — administrators, developers, service accounts, API keys, workload identities, and automated processes across AWS, Azure, GCP, and OCI.
Cloudanix provides identity governance that enforces FedRAMP IA-2 (Identification and Authentication), IA-4 (Identifier Management), IA-5 (Authenticator Management), and AC-2 (Account Management). This includes continuous monitoring of all identity types, automated detection of excessive permissions, enforcement of least-privilege access, and tracking of both human administrators and machine identities to ensure compliance with federal security standards.
Continuous Misconfiguration Detection for FedRAMP CM Controls
FedRAMP's Configuration Management (CM) controls — particularly CM-2 (Baseline Configuration), CM-6 (Configuration Settings), and CM-7 (Least Functionality) — require organizations to establish and maintain secure baseline configurations for all information systems.
Cloudanix continuously scans AWS, Azure, GCP, and OCI environments for FedRAMP-relevant misconfigurations including publicly accessible federal data, unencrypted storage, overly permissive security groups, disabled audit logging, and deviations from approved security baselines. Automated remediation and real-time alerting help organizations maintain the secure configuration posture required for FedRAMP authorization and continuous monitoring.
Workload Security for FedRAMP System Protection
FedRAMP's System and Communications Protection (SC) and System and Information Integrity (SI) control families require comprehensive protection for federal information systems and workloads. This includes boundary protection, transmission security, vulnerability management, and flaw remediation.
Cloudanix secures cloud workloads including containers, Kubernetes clusters, serverless functions, and virtual machines across AWS GovCloud, Azure Government, GCP, and OCI. Vulnerability scanning, runtime protection, network segmentation monitoring, and compliance checks ensure federal workloads meet SC-7 (Boundary Protection), SC-8 (Transmission Confidentiality), SC-28 (Protection of Information at Rest), and SI-2 (Flaw Remediation) requirements.
Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) for FedRAMP Supply Chain Security
FedRAMP Rev. 5 and federal cybersecurity executive orders emphasize software supply chain security and transparency. Organizations must demonstrate visibility into software components, dependencies, and vulnerabilities in systems processing federal data.
Cloudanix generates comprehensive SBOMs for containerized applications and cloud workloads deployed in federal environments. SBOM capabilities support FedRAMP SA-15 (Development Process, Standards, and Tools), SR-3 (Supply Chain Controls), and SR-4 (Provenance) by providing complete visibility into software components, identifying known vulnerabilities, enabling rapid response to supply chain threats, and maintaining evidence required for FedRAMP continuous monitoring and annual assessments.
