What is Security Assessment and Authorization?
Federal government agencies are mandated by the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) to understand the security risks posed to their information technology systems, applications, and environment, and are required to take appropriate actions to mitigate these risks. To help agencies evaluate these risks, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) developed a Security Assessment and Authorization (SA&A) methodology for federal information systems – NIST SP 800-53.
The SA&A is a formal methodology for testing and evaluating the security controls of the system to ensure that it is configured properly to meet the security mandate. A FISMA compliant SA&A is required for a system, application, or environment to get an Authority to Operate (ATO). WCG offers security risk assessment and clear recommendations to help our clients become compliant.
Key Benefits of SA & A, but are not limited to:
Regardless of an organization’s size, resources, or security budget, WCG’s top-down cyber security assessment provides a complete picture of an organization’s security controls and countermeasures to risks to your system.
WCG provides SA&A services that will help your organization get and remain compliant through a proven methodology that ensures customer readiness and efficient delivery with minimal impact on your support teams.
How will WCG help?
Our Security Assessment and Authorization Services include:
- Security Control Assessment: We’ll perform security control assessment (security risk assessment) which follows SP 800-53A to evaluate your current information security posture. Tailored to your needs and business goal, we also determine if your security program is implemented properly, operated as intended and producing the desired outcome.
- Design of Strategies: Our risk management experts identify risks through the security risk assessment and outline specific, actionable steps to improve your organization’s overall security posture. We’ll provide proof of concepts and deployment recommendations in the security risk assessment report for mitigating identified vulnerabilities based on the globally recognized recommendations of the NIST Risk Management Framework (SP 800-37, SP 800-137, SP 800-53 etc.) and industry best practices.
- Management: WCG supports efforts to comply with government and industry regulations such as FISMA, GLBA, HIPAA and other compliances with our security risk assessment. Securing Federal systems against cyber-attack is one of the nation’s highest priorities. Thus, we also assist with cloud migration or provide a hybrid cloud strategy to ensure your cloud security through the cyber security assessment. A complete cyber security assessment report will also be provided.