The federal government stands at the crossroads of necessity and innovation in the rapidly evolving cybersecurity landscape. The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) plays a critical role in this ecosystem, aiming to streamline security authorization for cloud products and services used by federal agencies. As automation seeps deeper into every facet of technological progress, FedRAMP’s modernization efforts emerge as a federal and cross-sector requirement that is a pivotal and often overlooked part of our national security strategy.
The overarching goal is clear: enhance cloud security, improve decision-making speed and foster a competitive environment for vendors. The partnership between tech companies and government agencies is critical to protecting everything from national secrets to the daily lives of all Americans. Currently, the high barrier to entry limits competition and narrows the options available to federal agencies, often resulting in a reliance on legacy technology.
One of the core objectives of FedRAMP modernization is to cut down the significant time lag — up to 15 months for some companies — to get their offerings approved. Delays and overheads related to legacy technology make it difficult to protect critical data within agencies and expose federal systems to potential risks. Speed supports agencies and operators in meeting mission-critical objectives. By expediting the authorization process and lowering costs, FedRAMP aims to diversify the pool of available solutions, allowing the federal government to adopt emerging cybersecurity and commercial technology more swiftly. This intention is laudable because paperwork should not stand between the nation and its best interests.
Continuous Monitoring and Automation
A robust continuous monitoring system underpins the FedRAMP modernization effort, enabling near real-time risk assessment and management. Adopting the Open Security Controls Assessment Language (OSCAL) is a significant pivot towards this approach that helps security teams, authorizing officials (AO), and the country.
Developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), OSCAL is crucial for federal agencies as it provides a standardized, machine-readable language to aid in documenting, implementing and evaluating security controls. Available in XML, JSON and YAML formats, OSCAL offers multiple layers and models aligned with various agency operational needs.
The unique value of OSCAL is its scalable and machine-readable format that will replace the cumbersome and error-prone way we work today. That way is slow and fantastically expensive. When companies wait a year or more for a decision on an authorization to operate (ATO) request, it costs everyone; the government deprives itself and the private sector of new technology, the applicant is stuck with a non-recoverable sunk cost, and the authorizer is forced to fumble through endless files, folders, and system crashes.
OSCAL allows quicker, more consistent decision-making, systems interoperability and information sharing. Detailed security plans, which could stretch up to 1200 pages, are distilled into more digestible, actionable formats through automation. This ensures that federal agencies can make rapid, informed decisions regarding their cloud security posture. Moreover, reports generated through OSCAL can be quickly parsed by auditing software, expediting the auditing process.
Support for FedRAMP Modernization
As such, OSCAL is essential to modernizing FedRAMP by standardizing security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring of cloud services. This is why Qualys is excited to adopt OSCAL — because it solves real security and business problems for SaaS providers like Qualys and our partners in FedRAMP.
OSCAL also helps develop tools and scripts to streamline cloud product preparation, authorization and reuse. This supports FedRAMP’s aim to speed up cloud adoption across federal agencies. Continuously improving alongside technological advancements, OSCAL offers significant benefits that, while not yet mandatory, are highly recommended for enhancing federal cybersecurity.
FedRAMP modernization aims to automate processes and bridge the information asymmetry between cloud service providers and federal agencies. Traditionally, the complex and voluminous documentation submitted by vendors has been a hurdle for federal agencies, often resulting in a lag in understanding the implications of using a particular service. Automation and adopting frameworks like OSCAL address this bottleneck, promoting transparency and facilitating improved accountability. Frankly, it’s also a cool and elegant technology with an extensible problem-solving component.
Culture and Mindset Shifts
Technology alone will not get the job done, and OSCAL is still in its infancy. Probably more important to the success of FedRAMP’s goals is the culture around security and compliance. Adopting an automation-first mindset will be necessary to ensure continuous compliance assessment at scale.
If a process needs to be repeated more than twice, it must be automated. This cultural shift reduces the repetitive burden that many federal cybersecurity teams face, allowing them to focus on strategic rather than transactional tasks. We should honor our time more than we do. Automation is a proven tactic to do more with less.
Building an Automated and Secure Future for Managing Federal Cyber Risk
Budget constraints are a harsh reality for federal agencies, especially in cybersecurity. Prioritizing risk is a shift that can yield significant financial benefits. In an era where almost every vulnerability is ranked as critical, a risk-based approach allows agencies to allocate their limited resources more effectively, addressing the most imminent threats first.
FedRAMP’s upcoming modernization emphasizes automation, transparency and collaboration in federal cybersecurity. By automating components of risk management, the federal government can leverage strategic partnerships and emerging technologies to boost its cyber resilience and secure critical infrastructure. These efforts prepare agencies for current cyber threats and enable them to adapt to future challenges.
Many of us are excited to champion FedRAMP’s new modernization strategy, which industry and federal leaders support. I believe it lays a solid foundation for mission-critical cybersecurity objectives, ensuring government agencies remain robust, agile, and prepared to tackle evolving cyber threats at home and abroad.
Alex Kreilein is vice president of product security at Qualys. He leads efforts to deliver secure, resilient and trustworthy products by focusing on vulnerability management, automation and developer enablement. He also leads the company’s Security by Design, DevSecOps and FedRAMP programs.
Previously, Alex led security and resiliency programs for mission-critical workloads at Microsoft Azure. He has also been a cloud-native critical infrastructure company CISO, a leader at the Department of Homeland Security and a Research Fellow at NIST. Alex co-founded the nation’s first cybersecurity boot camp and has been a General Partner at a cybersecurity-focused venture fund. He holds graduate degrees from CU Boulder and the U.S. Naval War College.
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