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Recent changes to FedRAMP® have sparked conversations about the program’s future, but one fact remains clear: FedRAMP is here to stay. Recognized as a critical program by the General Services Administration (GSA), it plays a key role in ensuring the security of cloud services used by federal agencies. That said, as the program evolves, notable changes are imminent.

Cybersecurity is no longer just a best practice—it’s a necessity, a foundational pillar of our national security. For over a decade, FedRAMP, or the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, has set the gold standard for securing the federal government’s cloud infrastructure, saving time, resources, and taxpayer dollars. But today, we stand at a crossroads. The challenges in front of us - bureaucratic roadblocks, inefficiencies, and budget constraints - threaten to unravel years of progress. The question is clear: Will we rise to the occasion, modernizing FedRAMP without sacrificing its integrity? Or will we allow short-term obstacles to drag us backward into an era of duplication, inconsistency, and increased vulnerability?

Every so often, a road needs to be repaved.

Did you know? The historic Apollo 11 mission that put a man on the moon took eight days, three hours, 18 minutes, and 35 seconds.

Lin Manuel Miranda is more known for his musical Hamilton these days, but years ago, he also wrote a 14-minute show called 21 Chump Street. It featured a song—“What the Heck I Gotta Do.”

Self-help guru Tony Robbins once said that "the meeting of preparation with opportunity generates the offspring we call luck."

As a Third Party Assessment Organization (3PAO), Schellman has been performing FedRAMP security assessments for Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) since 2014. During this time, we have seen our CSP clients pioneer technologies that provide federal agencies an opportunity to leverage new and innovative cloud services, all while modernizing their approach to building, deploying, and managing applications through containerization. Though this gradual shift to containerizing system components has increased CSPs’ operational efficiency and scale, it has also introduced new security risks to FedRAMP systems.