Tag Archives: Federal government

AWS FedRAMP Revision 5 baselines transition update

Post Syndicated from Kevin Donohue original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/aws-fedramp-revision-5-transition-update/

On May 20, 2023, the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) released the FedRAMP Rev.5 baselines. The FedRAMP baselines were updated to correspond with the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Special Publication (SP) 800-53 Rev. 5 Catalog of Security and Privacy Controls for Information Systems and Organizations and SP 800-53B Control Baselines for Information Systems and Organizations. AWS is transitioning to the updated security requirements and assisting customers by making new resources available (additional information on these resources below). AWS security and compliance teams are analyzing both the FedRAMP baselines and templates, along with the NIST 800-53 Rev. 5 requirements, to help ensure a seamless transition. This post details the high-level milestones for the transition of AWS GovCloud (US) and AWS US East/West FedRAMP-authorized Regions and lists new resources available to customers.

Background

The NIST 800-53 framework is an information security standard that sets forth minimum requirements for federal information systems. In 2020, NIST released Rev. 5 of the framework with new control requirements related to privacy and supply chain risk management, among other enhancements, to improve security standards for industry partners and government agencies. The Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA) of 2014 is a law requiring the implementation of information security policies for federal Executive Branch civilian agencies and contractors. FedRAMP is a government-wide program that promotes the adoption of secure cloud service offerings across the federal government by providing a standardized approach to security and risk assessment for cloud technologies and federal agencies. Both FISMA and FedRAMP adhere to the NIST SP 800-53 framework to define security control baselines that are applicable to AWS and its agency customers.

Key milestones and deliverables

The timeline for AWS to transition to FedRAMP Rev. 5 baselines will be predicated on transition guidance and requirements issued by the FedRAMP Program Management Office (PMO), our third-party assessment (3PAO) schedule, and the FedRAMP Provisional Authorization to Operate (P-ATO) authorization date. Below you will find a list of key documents to help customers get started with Rev. 5 on AWS, as well as timelines for the AWS preliminary authorization schedule.

Key Rev. 5 AWS documents for customers:

  • AWS FedRAMP Rev5 Customer Responsibility Matrix (CRM) – Made available on AWS Artifact September 1, 2023 (attachment within the AWS FedRAMP Customer Package).
  • AWS Customer Compliance Guides (CCG) V2 – AWS Customer Compliance Guides are now available on AWS Artifact. CCGs are mapped to NIST 800-53 Rev. 5 and nine additional compliance frameworks.

AWS GovCloud (US) authorization timeline:

  • 3PAO Rev. 5 annual assessment: January 2024–April 2024
  • Estimated 2024 Rev. 5 P-ATO letter delivery: Q4 2024

AWS US East/West commercial authorization timeline:

  • 3PAO Rev 5. annual assessment: March 2024–June 2024
  • Estimated 2024 Rev. 5 P-ATO letter delivery: Q4 2024

The AWS transition to FedRAMP Rev. 5 baselines will be completed in accordance with regulatory requirements as defined in our existing FedRAMP P-ATO letter, according to the FedRAMP Transition Guidance. Note that FedRAMP P-ATO letters and Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Provisional Authorization (PA) letters for AWS are considered active through the transition to NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5. This includes through the 2024 annual assessments of AWS GovCloud (US) and AWS US East/West Regions. The P-ATO letters for each Region are expected to be delivered between Q3 and Q4 of 2024. Supporting documentation required for FedRAMP authorization will be made available to U.S. Government agencies and stakeholders in 2024 on a rolling basis and based on the timeline and conclusion of 3PAO assessments.

How to contact us

For questions about the AWS transition to the FedRAMP Rev. 5 baselines, AWS and its services, or for compliance questions, contact [email protected].

To learn more about AWS compliance programs, see the AWS Compliance Programs page. For more information about the FedRAMP project, see the FedRAMP website.

If you have feedback about this post, submit comments in the Comments section below. If you have questions about this post, contact AWS Support.

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Kevin Donohue

Kevin Donohue

Kevin is a Senior Security Partner Strategist on the AWS Global Security and Compliance Acceleration team, specializing in shared responsibility and regulatory compliance support for AWS customers and partners. Kevin began his tenure with AWS in 2019 with the AWS FedRAMP program, where he created Customer Compliance Guides to assist U.S. government customers with their assessment and authorization responsibilities.

AWS achieves FedRAMP P-ATO for 20 services in the AWS US East/West Regions and AWS GovCloud (US) Regions

Post Syndicated from Steve Earley original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/aws-achieves-fedramp-p-ato-for-20-services-in-the-aws-us-east-west-regions-and-aws-govcloud-us-regions/

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is pleased to announce that 20 additional AWS services have achieved Provisional Authority to Operate (P-ATO) from the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) Joint Authorization Board (JAB). The following are the 20 AWS services with FedRAMP authorization for the U.S. federal government and organizations with regulated workloads:

  • AWS App Mesh provides application-level networking to help your services communicate with each other across multiple types of compute infrastructure.
  • AWS Audit Manager helps you to continuously audit your AWS usage to simplify how risk and compliance are assessed with regulations and industry standards.
  • AWS Chatbot is an interactive agent that helps you monitor, operate, and troubleshoot AWS workloads in your chat channels.
  • Amazon Chime SDK is a collection of client software development kits that use resources in your AWS account to add collaborative audio calling, video calling, and screen share features to your web or mobile applications.
  • AWS Cloud9 is a cloud-based integrated development environment (IDE) that helps you write, run, and debug your code with just a browser.
  • Amazon Detective helps you analyze, investigate, and quickly identify the root cause of potential security issues or suspicious activities.
  • EC2 Image Builder simplifies the building, testing, and deployment of virtual machine and container images for use on AWS or on-premises.
  • Amazon FinSpace is a data management and analytics service that is purpose built for the financial services industry (FSI).
  • AWS Firewall Manager is a security management service that allows you to centrally configure and manage firewall rules across your accounts and applications in AWS Organizations.
  • Amazon Forecast is a fully managed service that uses machine learning to deliver highly accurate forecasts.
  • Amazon Keyspaces (for Apache Cassandra) is a scalable, highly available, and managed Apache Cassandra–compatible database service.
  • Amazon Kinesis Data Analytics is a fully managed service that you can use to process and analyze streaming data using Java, SQL, or Scala.
  • Amazon Lex is an AWS service for building conversational interfaces into applications using voice and text.
  • Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka (Amazon MSK) is an AWS streaming data service that manages Apache Kafka infrastructure and operations.
  • Amazon MQ is a managed message broker service for Apache ActiveMQ and RabbitMQ to help you set up and operate message brokers on AWS.
  • Amazon Neptune is a fast, reliable, fully managed graph database service that helps you build and run applications that work with highly connected datasets.
  • AWS Network Firewall is a managed service that helps you to deploy essential network protections for your Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC).
  • Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (Amazon QLDB) is a purpose-built ledger database that provides a complete and cryptographically verifiable history of changes made to your application data.
  • AWS Resource Access Manager (AWS RAM) is designed to help you securely share resources across AWS accounts, within your organization or organizational units (OUs) in AWS Organizations, and with AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) roles and users for supported resource types.
  • Amazon Timestream is a fast, scalable, and serverless time series database service for AWS IoT Core and operational applications that can help you to store and analyze trillions of events per day up to 1,000 times faster and at as little as 1/10th the cost of relational databases.

These 20 services are now listed on the FedRAMP Marketplace and the AWS Services in Scope by Compliance Program page.

Service authorizations by AWS Region

The following table shows our most recent FedRAMP service authorizations by Region and authorization level:

Service FedRAMP Moderate in the AWS US East/West Region FedRAMP High in the AWS GovCloud (US) Region
AWS App Mesh ✓  
AWS Audit Manager ✓  
AWS Chatbot ✓  
Amazon Chime SDK   ✓
AWS Cloud9 ✓  
Amazon Detective   ✓
EC2 Image Builder ✓ ✓
Amazon FinSpace ✓  
AWS Firewall Manager ✓ ✓
Amazon Forecast ✓  
Amazon Keyspaces (for Apache Cassandra)   ✓
Amazon Kinesis Data Analytics ✓ ✓
Amazon Lex   ✓
Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka (Amazon MSK) ✓ ✓
Amazon MQ   ✓
Amazon Neptune ✓ ✓
AWS Network Firewall ✓ ✓
Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (Amazon QLDB) ✓  
AWS Resource Access Manager (AWS RAM) ✓ ✓
Amazon Timestream ✓  

AWS is continually expanding the scope of our compliance programs to help customers use authorized services for sensitive and regulated workloads. AWS now offers 123 AWS services authorized in the AWS US East/West Regions under FedRAMP Moderate Authorization, and 105 services authorized in the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions under FedRAMP High Authorization.

To learn what other public sector customers are doing on AWS, see our Government, Education, and Nonprofits Case Studies and Customer Success Stories. Stay tuned for future updates on our Services in Scope by Compliance Program page. Let us know how this post will help your mission by reaching out to your AWS Account Team. Lastly, if you have feedback about this blog post, let us know in the Comments section.

 
If you have feedback about this post, submit comments in the Comments section below. If you have questions about this post, contact AWS Support.

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Steve Earley

Steve Earley

Steve leads the Government Audits Team and the commercial Customer Audit Program for AWS. For over 20 years, he has led security organizations and assessed control environments in both public and private sectors as a security executive with multiple organizations. At AWS, he provides direction for AWS services and features seeking adherence to federal compliance requirements while championing for customer-centric innovation.

Whitney Peters

Whitney Peters

Whitney is a part of the U.S. Government Audits Team for AWS. For the past six years, she has guided services internally and externally through various federal compliance frameworks to achieve their Authority to Operate (ATO).

James Mueller

James Mueller

James is a Security Assurance Manager for AWS. For over 20 years, he has served customers in the private, public, and non-profit sectors delivering innovative information technology solutions. He currently leads security compliance efforts to drive adoption of AWS services.

AWS announces migration plans for NIST 800-53 Revision 5

Post Syndicated from James Mueller original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/aws-announces-migration-plans-for-nist-800-53-revision-5/

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is excited to begin migration plans for National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 800-53 Revision 5.

The NIST 800-53 framework is a regulatory standard that defines the minimum baseline of security controls for U.S. federal information systems. In 2020, NIST released Revision 5 of the framework to improve security standards for industry partners and government agencies. The set of NIST 800-53 controls provides a foundation for additional laws and regulations within the U.S. government.

The Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA) of 2014 is a law that requires federal agencies and contractors to meet information security standards. The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) is a federal government program that provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring of cloud services. Both FISMA and FedRAMP rely on the NIST 800-53 framework.

NIST 800-53 Revision 5

AWS meets the NIST 800-53 Revision 4 regulatory standards mandated by government authorities. NIST added numerous security enhancements, such as privacy and supply chain management, to Revision 5 to keep abreast of emerging threats to federal information systems.

In preparation for federal regulators to accept NIST 800-53 Revision 5 as the new requirement standard, AWS has begun efforts to adapt to the new security controls, processes, and procedures. AWS security compliance teams have analyzed the new requirements and launched a project to implement the updates. Although AWS is not required to migrate to the new Revision 5 standard until NIST announces the official regulatory compliance deadline, we are already taking steps to meet the deadline.

To learn more about AWS compliance programs, see the AWS Compliance Programs page.

 
If you have feedback about this post, submit comments in the Comments section below. If you have questions about this post, contact AWS Support.

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James Mueller

James Mueller

James is a Security Assurance Manager for AWS. For over 20 years, he has served customers in the private, public, and non-profit sectors delivering innovative information technology solutions. He currently leads security compliance efforts to drive adoption of AWS services.

AWS achieves the first OSCAL format system security plan submission to FedRAMP

Post Syndicated from Matthew Donkin original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/aws-achieves-the-first-oscal-format-system-security-plan-submission-to-fedramp/

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the first cloud service provider to produce an Open Security Control Assessment Language (OSCAL)–formatted system security plan (SSP) for the FedRAMP Project Management Office (PMO). OSCAL is the first step in the AWS effort to automate security documentation to simplify our customers’ journey through cloud adoption and accelerate the authorization to operate (ATO) process.

AWS continues its commitment to innovation and customer obsession. Our incorporation of the OSCAL format will improve the customer experience of reviewing and assessing security documentation. It can take an estimated 4,200 workforce hours for companies to receive an ATO, with much of the effort due to manual review and transcription of documentation. Automating this process through a machine-translatable language gives our customers the ability to ingest security documentation into a governance, risk management, and compliance (GRC) tool to automate much of this time-consuming task. AWS worked with an AWS Partner, to ingest the AWS SSP through their tool, Xacta.

This is a first step in several initiatives AWS has planned to automate the security assurance process across multiple compliance frameworks. We continue to look for ways to earn trust with our customers, and over the next year we will continue to release new solutions that customers can use to rapidly deploy secure and innovative services.

“Providing the SSP packages in OSCAL is a great milestone in security automation marking the beginning of a new era in cybersecurity. We appreciate the leadership in this area and look forward to working with all cyber professionals, in particular with the visionary cloud service providers, to help deliver secure innovation faster to the people they serve.”

– Dr. Michaela Iorga, OSCAL Strategic Outreach Director, NIST

To learn more about OSCAL, visit the NIST OSCAL website. To learn more about FedRAMP’s plans for OSCAL, visit the FedRAMP Blog.

To learn what other public sector customers are doing on AWS, see our Government, Education, and Nonprofits case studies and customer success stories. Stay tuned for future updates on our Services in Scope by Compliance Program page. Let us know how this post will help your mission by reaching out to your AWS account team. Lastly, if you have feedback about this blog post, let us know in the Comments section.

Want more AWS Security news? Follow us on Twitter.

Matthew Donkin

Matthew Donkin

Matthew Donkin, AWS Security Compliance Lead, provides direction and guidance for security documentation automation, physical security compliance, and assists customers in navigating compliance in the cloud. He is leading the development of the industries’ first open security controls assessment language (OSCAL) artifacts for adoption of a faster and more reliable way to process resource intensive documentation within the authorization process.