FISMA

Summary

Regulation: Federal Information Security Management Act

Abbreviation: FISMA

Governs these parties: US federal agencies that provide services or receive grant money

Enforced by: the Department of Homeland Security

Details

FISMA aims to reduce the potential risk of unauthorized data use, and to develop, document, and implement an information security and protection program disclosure. The governed federal agencies need to comply with the information security standards guidelines, and mandatory required standards developed by NIST.

The rest of this document is designed to help our community understand FISMA better by outlining the following information.

How this regulation relates to cybersecurity

In order to comply with FISMA, federal agencies need to provide information security protections commensurate with the risk and magnitude of the harm resulting from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, or destruction of and maintain an information system inventory, categorize information systems, maintain a system security plan, utilize security controls, conduct risk assessments, control certification, and accreditation and ensure continuous monitoring.

How Coro handles compliance for you

At Coro, we've done the research thoroughly and regularly track updates to the regulation in order to ensure that you are implementing best practices in the areas we cover when we're protecting your systems.

The following table outlines the requirements described by FISMA that Coro implements in conjunction with Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace.

Disclaimer

This table does not guarantee that your organization is compliant with these regulations. As a best practice, seek assistance from a certified auditor when completing your analysis.

Category Requirement How Coro does it
Cloud Security & Privacy Malware and ransomware injection Detects and remediates malware and ransomware files in cloud drives
Cloud app account takeover Monitors access to cloud apps and user/admin activities on them
Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) Enforces multi-factor authentication on cloud app access
Data governance over cloud drives Data loss prevention (DLP) for regulatory and business-sensitive data
Data encryption Safeguards stored sensitive information against unauthorized use and information leaks
Audit and activity logs Archives all system activities for a period of seven years, supporting referencing and auditing
Email Security & Privacy Generic and spear phishing Detects and remediates social engineering attacks based on email content analysis
Identity spoofing Detects and remediates social engineering attacks based on adaptive identity monitoring
Malware and ransomware injection Detects and remediates malware and ransomware in email attachments
Embedded links to malicious URLs Detects and remediates embedded links to malicious servers
Email account takeover Detects and remediates email attacks from within the organization
DLP over outgoing/incoming email Encrypts emails before they are sent, which are then decrypted by their recipients at the other end.
Encryption of email during transmission Encrypts email during transit between the sender and the recipient
Business email compromise (BEC) Scans business email, detects and protects against social engineering attacks
Audit and activity logs Archives all system activities for a period of seven years, supporting referencing and auditing
Endpoint Security & Privacy Antivirus (AV) Detects and remediates files with high-risk content based on their signatures
ATP (NGAV) Detects and remediates processes exhibiting high-risk behaviors with behavioral analysis
Device security posture Detects security vulnerabilities on endpoint devices and enforces device security posture
Data recovery Stores local snapshots of data
EDR Enables post-breach analysis of endpoint activities across the organization
DLP on endpoint devices Provides data loss prevention (DLP) for business-sensitive data and data defined as sensitive by regulations
Audit and activity logs Archives all system activities for a period of seven years, supporting referencing and auditing
Data Governance Data distribution governance and role management Provides data loss prevention (DLP) for data defined as sensitive by regulations
Security and business-specific data monitoring Monitors for sensitive data according to business and security best practices, including passwords, certificates, source code, proprietary data, etc.
Audit and activity logs Archives all system activities for a period of seven years, supporting referencing and auditing