POA&M Resource Center
Answering the most common questions about POA&Ms and their capabilities on our platform. For more in-depth tutorials and guides, use the links below.
Frequently Asked Questions:
We recommend finding a tool that does these 5 things:
- Puts an emphasis on information assurance
- Has automated evidence collection and validation
- Uses a transparent process
- Balances automation and manual attestations
- Includes flexible validation scheduling
→ Get more tips to find the best tool for your 20x process.
POA&M templates often fail and lead to bad security practices. VDR shifts compliance from point-in-time snapshots to continuous readiness. The goal is to bring agencies and vendors closer to true continuous ATO.
But, you can't manually sift through vulnerabilities and hit required timelines. You’ll need processes that detect, assess, and patch automatically where possible.
Paramify will alert you to LEVs and IRVs instantly. From there you can prioritize the N5s and automate the fixes for lower ones.
Find out how VDR works and watch below to learn how Paramify helps:
20x requires continuous assessment of your tool so agencies can get a more real-time understanding of your security posture.
With Paramify you can automatically retrieve, store, and validate the evidence required for continuous assessment of your FedRAMP 20x KSIs.
Trust Centers are a requirement for FedRAMP 20x authorization. Paramify will help you build out your own trust center that will include details on your compliance programs.
Check out Paramify’s trust center as an example.
FedRAMP Authorization is different from an Authority to Operate (ATO). In the past, you could only get FedRAMP Authorized with an ATO — and to get an ATO you’d have to have an agency sponsor.
You can get FedRAMP Authorized without a sponsor, but your ATO comes once an agency begins using you. Having the authorization in advance will speed up the process and provide agencies with more options that have necessary security controls already in place.
Yes, when you’ve completed FedRAMP 20x your company will be added to the FedRAMP Marketplace. From there federal agencies can choose your product.
We’re still finding out the details on 20x Moderate. We’ve heard suggestions that pen tests and red teams are not being included for moderate-level 20x assessments, though agencies may still request them independently.
We’ll update as we learn more.
Paramify automatically creates and updates any required reporting as you implement your KSIs and update their statuses.
Machine-readable or not, documentation sucks. So we’re taking care of it.
The 20x program is still being developed — it’s a little like building the airplane in flight.
The fine folks at FedRAMP are testing, receiving feedback and iterating as they go. To do this they’re piloting the different impact levels individually.
- The pilot for FedRAMP 20x low is complete and open for new submissions.
- Moderate and High-level 20x are expected to be available by early 2026
Psst: Federal agencies are looking to fast-track fedRAMP Authorization for AI tools. If you're looking for authorization for your AI tool, you can get started now.
Expect to move much faster with 20x. Paramify and the other companies we helped through the process were able to submit in less than 30 days.
Get more info here:
FedRAMP 20x is significantly less expensive than traditional FedRAMP. Expect to spend between $145k to $180k initially and $235k to $360k annually to maintain authorization.
Find a full breakdown of the cost of FedRAMP and FedRAMP 20x to know what to expect and how to reduce your spend.
A KSI is a Key Security Indicator. This is a measurable metric or control used to assess the security posture of cloud services in FedRAMP.
KSIs provide a standardized, machine-readable way to evaluate and monitor the security of a CSPs by focusing on critical security controls or outcomes.
Learn about KSIs or read here to see how they compare to traditional controls.
You’re eligible for 20x if:
- Your tool is cloud-native on an authorized platform (AWS, Azure, GCP).
- Can create a machine-readable file to show evidence of 20x KSIs.
- Have a FedRAMP-savvy 3PAO to audit your submission
If you’ve done a SOC 2 type 2 audit (or something similar) in the last year, it can also speed up your process.
→ Find 20x eligibility requirements to see if it’s right for you
FedRAMP 20x is designed to be as secure as Rev 5, if not more so.
20x emphasizes flexible, risk-based mitigations and automation over rigid manual processes — aligning better with modern RMF principles for adaptive threat handling.
This shift reduces outdated implementations while maintaining or enhancing overall security standards.
We believe risk-based security beats checklist compliance every time:
Traditional FedRAMP relies on detailed NIST-based controls, manual reviews, agency sponsorships, and lengthy authorization processes that can take months or years.
FedRAMP 20x, introduced by the GSA in March 2025, accelerates the process for cloud-native services. 20x emphasizes automation, machine-readable documentation, real-time monitoring, and doesn’t require an agency sponsorship. Authorizations are possible much faster without reducing security.
→ Find out if 20x is a good fit for your organization.
Yes — authorization can be reused by multiple agencies via the FedRAMP Marketplace, but some agencies may request additional requirements.
20x introduces automation, key security indicators (KSIs), continuous monitoring validation, and streamlined authorization (sometimes without sponsor requirements).
Incomplete documentation, insufficient evidence, failing initial gap assessments, lack of executive support, and underestimating resource requirements.
→ How to create the most accurate documentation for audit success
FedRAMP is U.S. government-specific and NIST-based, more prescriptive and granular than commercial standards.
FedRAMP allows CSPs to “inherit” controls from IaaS providers; you must document and verify this inheritance with shared responsibility models.
Controls follow NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 (with additional FedRAMP overlays) — covering access control, incident response, risk assessment, configuration management, etc.
→ Get your custom accelerated FedRAMP implementation roadmap
At minimum:
- Monthly POAMs and vulnerability scans
- Annual security assessments
- Ad hoc submissions for significant changes.
Plan of Action and Milestones: a document tracking remediation plans for open vulnerabilities, findings, and compliance issues.
→ Learn more about POAMs
ConMon involves ongoing assessments, vulnerability scanning, reporting POAMs, and keeping security posture current post-authorization.
Major deliverables include a System Security Plan (SSP), Security Assessment Plan (SAP), Security Assessment Report (SAR), Plan of Actions and Milestones (POA&M), Continuous Monitoring (ConMon) documentation, policies/procedures, and more.
Yes, for now. But, agency sponsorship requirements are evolving — FedRAMP 20x does not require a sponsor.
Consider experience with similar environments, references, price, and knowledge of specific cloud implementations.
→ Find the best assessor for your CSP with these tips
A Third Party Assessment Organization is an accredited independent assessor that conducts key security testing and assessment for FedRAMP.
→ Find a recommended 3PAO
- Initial costs range from ~$150k to $3M+ for gap assessments, remediation, 3PAO audits, and documentation/reporting.
- Annual costs can range from $50k to $1m to maintain documentation, do continuous monitoring, and resource allocation.
→ Learn more about what FedRAMP could cost your organization and whether or not it’s worth the effort
Typical processes take 6–24 months. Paramify accelerates the process to take between 1-10 months with a fully prepared package in less than a month.
Your timeline will vary depending on your impact level, whether you take a manual or automated approach to implementation & documentation, and PMO wait times.
→ Learn about the FedRAMP Authorization process and what it costs.
- Ready: Preliminary review for capability and documentation.
- In Process: CSP is actively working toward authorization, usually with an agency sponsor or as part of the JAB program.
- Authorized: Successfully completed security assessment and continuous monitoring.
Low, Moderate, and High — based on the type and sensitivity of federal data hosted (FIPS 199 categories: confidentiality, integrity, availability).
→ Get the details on impact level to know which impact level is right for you.
Any cloud service provider (CSP) that wants to sell cloud products or services to U.S. federal agencies must be FedRAMP authorized.
→ Learn more to find out if FedRAMP is a good choice for your cloud-based business.
FedRAMP stands for the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program; it standardizes the security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for cloud products and services used by U.S. federal agencies.
If you’re new to FedRAMP: The time required depends on how long it takes to implement your security controls. With Paramify’s living gap assessment dashboard, you can build your compliance roadmap and generate documents instantly with one click.
If you’re already FedRAMP authorized: It can take as little as 3.5 hours or up to a week.
Yes! No one will help you transition to FedRAMP Rev 5 as affordably and painlessly as Paramify. Learn how you can make a seamless, inexpensive transition to Rev 5.
Use Paramify's Risk Solution platform to automate ATO packages, improving cost efficiency, speed, and accuracy. This frees your team to focus on more valuable efforts like security posture enhancement and compliance improvements.
Are your security controls in place and do you have the certifications and authorizations you need? Then yes, hours it is.
Here’s how one company got their SSP in 3.5 hours.
If you’re in an earlier stage, you may have some security controls in place, but aren’t quite sure which controls need to be satisfied to meet your compliance goals.
Paramify will help you find the gaps in your security program and help you coordinate with your team to address them.
After our intake, you can print your documents at any point. How quickly you can implement your security goals is the only factor in how long it will take you to have a fully accurate and complete SSP.
A well-known 3PAO has told us that our customers “are better prepared than other CSPs.”
Our customers have received positive feedback on the accuracy and consistency of their ATO Packages. The Risk Solutions methodology has also been successful at increasing the efficiency and ease of the auditing process.
So yes, the audits are going well.
Yes, we offer this service and have provided it for many clients. Most of our customers, including those for whom we’ve ingested their SSP, have found that starting from scratch and adopting the full power of Risk Solutions was the better option.
Probably.
Paramify leverages an open-source technology KOTS (Kubernetes-Off-The-Shelf) to make self-hosted installations as fast and straight-forward as possible. Paramify can be deployed to most cloud providers that support Kubernetes such as AWS, Azure, and others.
Air-gapped and bare-metal solutions are also available.
Depending on the configuration, you may need to provide some capabilities, such as persistent storage, SMTP, SSO (Google, Okta, etc.), and Ingress Controllers/Load Balancers.
Our pricing represents outstanding value. Companies of all sizes will find the benefits we provide far exceed the cost. Contact us to learn more about start-up discounts.
We've heard your requests for this feature loud and clear. Contact us today to discuss setting up a trial.
Nope.
While this is a common problem in the security software industry, we’ve designed Paramify so it doesn’t require any sensitive permissions. We also don’t use any agent installations.
It’s pretty ironic that a security company would ask you to hand over your information to strangers? Paramify does it differently.
Risk Solutions is Paramify’s unique method for streamlining and accelerating the compliance document process. With Risk Solutions you can create OSCAL SSPs in days, not months.
A Risk Solution is a capability your organization uses, plans to use, or does not yet have. Updating one Risk Solution will automatically update every control and document that it maps to. Importantly, they satisfy controls from most any framework.
Paramify keeps a library of battle-tested Risk Solutions that are audited and certified many times over. You can use Risk Solutions as-is, customize them, or write your own.
Learn more about how Risk Solutions simplify compliance.
See our blog post for a step-by-step guide on how to build and deploy a Risk Solution framework.
