Are CMMC and FedRAMP the Same Thing?
Short Answer: No. But they are closely related.
While CMMC (Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification) and FedRAMP (Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program) both deal with cybersecurity and compliance in the federal space, they are distinct frameworks with different purposes, audiences, and certification paths.
To understand how these frameworks differ, you must first understand what they are separately.
What is CMMC?
CMMC is a cybersecurity certification framework developed by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). Its purpose is to ensure that all contractors and subcontractors in the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) have adequate security practices in place to protect Federal Contract Information (FCI) at level 1 and Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) at levels 2 and 3.
- Audience: Defense contractors and subcontractors
- Focus: Protection of FCI/CUI within the DoD supply chain
- Structure: Multi-level maturity model (Levels 1 to 3)
- Based on: NIST SP 800-171, with additional process maturity requirements
- Certification: Requires third-party assessment for advanced levels (2 and 3) and self-assessment for level 1
What is FedRAMP?
FedRAMP is a government-wide program that standardizes how cloud services are secured, assessed, and authorized for use by civilian federal agencies.
- Audience: Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) that want to offer services to federal agencies
- Focus: Cloud infrastructure and services
- Structure: Three impact levels (low, moderate, high)
- Based on: NIST SP 800-53 security controls
- Certification: Requires a Joint Authorization Board (JAB) or agency authorization
How They Work Together
While they are not the same, CMMC and FedRAMP can be complementary:
- A cloud supporter that wants to support DoD contractors with CMMC compliance must first be FedRAMP authorized, typically at the moderate or high level.
- Many CMMC-compliant environments are hosted in FedRAMP-authorized clouds (e.g., Microsoft Azure Government, AWS).
- DoD contractors often rely on FedRAMP-authorized services to meet some of the CMMC controls related to system security, data protection, and access control.
Raising the Bar for Cybersecurity
CMMC ensures contractors handle sensitive DoD data securely. FedRAMP ensures that cloud services used by federal agencies are secure. Both are rooted in NIST standards and aim to raise the bar for cybersecurity, but they operate in different layers of the federal ecosystem. If you’re a contractor using cloud services to store or process CUI, you may need both:
- FedRAMP-compliant cloud infrastructure, and
- CMMC-compliant internal security practices.
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to us. Or if you’re interested in learning more about the CMMC ecosystem, check out our podcast channel.