FedRAMP Releases Updated Security Assessment Plan Templates

Last week the GSA FedRAMP Program Office released the latest version of the cloud computing Security Assessment Plan (SAR) template.  This document is the most recent step toward the Federal governments goal of establishing FedRAMP initial operating Capability by June 2012.

The Federal Risk Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) is a government-wide program that provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for Cloud Service Providers (CSP). Testing security controls is an integral part of the FedRAMP security authorization requirements and enables Federal Agencies to use the findings that result from the tests to make risk-based decisions. Providing a plan for security control ensures that the process runs smoothly. This document has been designed for CSP Third-Party Independent Assessors (3PAOs) to use for planning security testing of CSPs. Once filled out, this document constitutes a plan for testing. Actual findings from the tests are to be recorded in FedRAMP security test procedure workbooks and a Security Assessment Report (SAR).

This release also includes templates for:

• Information Technology Contingency Plan 
• Control Implementation Summary (CIS)
• eAuthentication
• Plan of Action and Milestones (POA&M)
• Rules of Behavior
• Privacy Threshold Analysis and Privacy Impact Assessment
• Security Assessment Plan; and
• FedRAMP System Security Plan

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