FedRAMP ATO Readiness Assurance

FedRAMP Authorization to Operate (ATO) Readiness Assurance is a vital preliminary step for a cloud service provider seeking to offer its services to United States federal agencies. It is essentially a high-level, independent evaluation of the cloud environment's security posture to determine whether it is sufficiently mature and prepared to withstand the rigorous, comprehensive FedRAMP security assessment.

The assurance process is conducted by a FedRAMP-accredited Third-Party Assessment Organization (3PAO). It focuses on the practical implementation of critical security controls rather than on documentation alone. The key components of this assurance include:

• Boundary Validation: Clearly defining and verifying the authorization boundary, which is the scope of the cloud service offering that will process, store, or transmit federal data. This includes mapping out all associated external and internal systems and data flows to ensure that everything handling government information is included.

• Security Control Implementation Review: The 3PAO assesses a critical subset of security controls, often focusing on the technical and operational controls that are foundational to the system's security. This includes reviewing controls for access management, data encryption, continuous monitoring, and physical or logical separation of tenants.

• Maturity Assessment: Evaluating the organizational processes, policies, and procedures to ensure they are consistently applied and sufficiently mature to support the stringent requirements of the complete FedRAMP program, particularly continuous monitoring.

• Gap Identification: The process is designed to proactively discover any significant gaps, weaknesses, or misconfigurations that could prevent the cloud service from achieving an ATO. This allows the provider to remediate high-risk issues early, saving time and resources later in the complete assessment phase.

Successful completion of this process results in a Readiness Assessment Report (RAR). If approved by the FedRAMP Program Management Office (PMO), the cloud service receives a "FedRAMP Ready" designation, signaling to federal agencies that the provider has the essential security capabilities in place and is a viable candidate for sponsorship toward a final Authority to Operate.

ThreatNG's capabilities provide a foundational, continuous, and attacker-centric validation layer that is invaluable for a Cloud Service Provider seeking FedRAMP ATO Readiness Assurance. By continuously identifying and mapping all internet-exposed vulnerabilities to the underlying NIST 800-53 controls, ThreatNG helps the organization demonstrate the security implementation maturity required for the Readiness Assessment Report (RAR).

External Discovery

ThreatNG performs purely external unauthenticated discovery to map the precise scope of the external attack surface, ensuring all assets within the FedRAMP Authorization Boundary are known and assessed.

• Example: A CSP's cloud offering may use a separate staging subdomain hosted on an identified Cloud Platform to manage updates. ThreatNG discovers this asset and its associated IP addresses, ensuring that this external component, which could expose the federal data flow if misconfigured, is included in the required security assessment and documentation in accordance with FedRAMP boundary rules.

External Assessment

The External Assessment generates quantified risk ratings and definitive proof of security control implementation failures from a hacker's view.

• Web Application Hijack Susceptibility Rating: A poor rating here due to a subdomain missing the HSTS (HTTP Strict Transport Security) Header.

• Detailed Example: This finding immediately validates a failure to strictly enforce HTTPS, which directly compromises the confidentiality and integrity of data in transit. This preemptively identifies a critical weakness in controls related to SC-8 (Transmission Confidentiality and Integrity) and SC-28 (Protection of Information in Transit) before the 3PAO formal review.

• Data Leak Susceptibility Rating: This rating is affected by the discovery of sensitive data that has been exposed.

• Detailed Example: The discovery of Code Secrets Found in a public repository provides irrefutable evidence of a severe credential exposure. This validates a violation of SC-12 (Cryptographic Key Establishment and Management) and AC-3 (Access Enforcement), which are foundational FedRAMP controls.

• Cyber Risk Exposure Rating: This holistic rating is affected by misconfigured network services and non-secure protocols.

• Detailed Example: The system detects that the primary domain is missing DNSSEC. This critical vulnerability leaves the cloud service susceptible to DNS spoofing and cache poisoning attacks, undermining trust and integrity, and directly indicating a failure to meet the strict integrity requirements of SI-7 (Software, Firmware, and Information Integrity) and SC-7 (Boundary Protection).

Continuous Monitoring

ThreatNG’s capability provides continuous monitoring of the external attack surface. This addresses the FedRAMP mandate for ongoing security and proves that the CSP can maintain security controls post-authorization.

• Example: An administrator accidentally leaves a non-standard port open during a maintenance window (Custom Port Scan finding). Continuous monitoring detects this change, alerts the security team, and provides the Configuration Management (CM) control mapping instantly, allowing the CSP to remediate the exposure before the following monthly continuous monitoring deliverable is due.

Investigation Modules

The investigation modules provide the detailed evidence and attribution (Legal-Grade Attribution) necessary to support the Readiness Assessment Report (RAR) and address Plan of Action and Milestones (POA&M) items.

• External GRC Assessment: This module provides direct mappings of all external findings to the NIST 800-53 control family.

• Detailed Example: The discovery of Subdomains Missing Content Security Policy maps directly to SC-5(Denial of Service Protection) and SI-3 (Malicious Code Protection). The external GRC assessment provides the exact technical evidence that an external assessor would use to fail that control, allowing the CSP to remediate the configuration and update the System Security Plan documentation with proof of implementation.

• Sensitive Code Exposure: This module discovers and scans public code repositories for credentials and configuration files.

• Detailed Example:* The repository check finds a Terraform variable config file exposed. This configuration information could detail the cloud service's backend architecture. The finding is immediately flagged as a violation of CM-6 (Configuration Settings) and PL-8 (Information Security Architecture) due to the inadvertent disclosure of system structure.

• IP Intelligence: This module discovers Private IPs Found being leaked publicly.

• Detailed Example: The system finds an internal IP address exposed in a public DNS record. This reconnaissance-level information significantly aids an attacker in mapping the internal network. ThreatNG provides the exact DNS record and IP address, demonstrating a critical failure in SC-7 (Boundary Protection) and CM-6 (Configuration Settings).

Intelligence Repositories

The intelligence repositories provide external, threat-centric context, helping the CSP prioritize remediation efforts for the RAR and POA&M.

• Vulnerabilities (DarCache Vulnerability): This repository integrates NVD, EPSS, and KEV data to prioritize Critical Severity Vulnerabilities Found on external subdomains. It links to Verified Proof-of-Concept (PoC) Exploits.

• Example: If an exposed web application has a known vulnerability, ThreatNG labels it as exploitable because it is listed in the KEV, thereby forcing immediate remediation prioritization under RA-5 (Vulnerability Monitoring and Scanning).

Reporting

ThreatNG’s External GRC Assessment Mappings deliver customizable, prioritized reports.

• Example: ThreatNG provides a Prioritized (High, Medium, Low, and Informational) Report focused solely on all discovered security gaps that map directly to the NIST 800-53 controls being assessed for readiness. This enables the CSP to quickly assign and track remediation actions for critical gaps, such as Subdomain Takeover Susceptibility (CM-6 and RA-3 violations), directly contributing to the POA&M required for the Readiness Assessment.

Complementary Solutions

ThreatNG acts as a foundational source of high-fidelity external risk data, optimizing internal security tools and processes.

• Vulnerability Scanners and Management Platforms: ThreatNG provides a validated list of all discovered subdomains and their specific open Custom Ports which may be unknown or overlooked by internal asset inventories. This new list of assets is seamlessly fed to the internal vulnerability scanner, ensuring that the entire external boundary is scanned in compliance with RA-5 (Vulnerability Monitoring and Scanning) requirements and maximizing the scanner's efficiency.

• Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) Systems: Upon detecting a new, critical risk, such as a Wildcard Certificate Found that is nearing expiration, ThreatNG's alert and Legal-Grade Attribution are sent to the SOAR. The SOAR can then automatically trigger a workflow to create a high-priority ticket in the IT service management system, assign it to the certificate owner, and initiate a new request with the Certificate Authority, ensuring the CSP meets the CM-6 (Configuration Settings) control for certificate management.

• Identity and Access Management (IAM) Systems: The discovery of Compromised Credentials from the Dark Web (DarCache Rupture) is sent to the IAM solution. The IAM system then forces an immediate password change and multi-factor authentication enrollment for the affected user's organizational account, fulfilling the proactive enforcement requirements of IA-2 (Identification and Authentication) and AC-2 (Account Management).