Cisco Meraki Achieves FedRAMP In Process Designation

As the operator of the industry’s largest cloud networking service, Cisco Meraki places advanced security as a top focus of our platform. In keeping with our commitment to securely serve our customers, we’re delighted to announce that we have begun the formal process to become authorized with the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP®). This is an important step in bringing our cloud-based platform, including the flagship Meraki networking products MX (security and SD-WAN), MS (switching), and MR (access points) to the U.S. Government. 

National security is a priority

FedRAMP is a government-wide program that provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for cloud products and services. This program is designed to improve security and reduce risk for government agencies that use cloud services, and it is a critical requirement for many federal agencies and contractors. 

How we think about security

We design our products with security in mind at every layer, from our infrastructure to our cloud management dashboard and applications. Some of the factors that contribute to our security posture include: 

• Secure and effective monitoring and configuration of data storage in a multi-tenant environment using encryption and data segmentation, the highly available and secure out-of-band control plane that ensures no user traffic passes through Meraki data centers 
• Rigorous physical security at our data centers located on U.S. soil, including high-security access control with biometric readers, video surveillance, and 24×7 security guard monitoring  

A complete solution

Cisco Meraki for Government offers a complete portfolio of secure networking products, enabling organizations to configure a highly customizable networking solution to best fit their needs. The cloud-based platform simplifies deployment and management of secure network configurations, which are consistent across an entire IT infrastructure. With this option, organizations can use the same security principles implemented across all of their Meraki networks, without compromising network configuration or security features. Working from a stand–alone government cloud, agencies also have the peace of mind that Cisco Meraki is compliant with FIPS 140-2 and is always –on for device-to-cloud communications. 

Cisco Meraki remains steadfast in our commitment and investment to our Federal Government partners and the entire ecosystem that supports the U.S. government mission. In 2022, for the third year in a row, Gartner® has named Cisco a Leader in the Magic Quadrant™ for SD-WAN (previously WAN Edge Infrastructure). Cisco offers Cisco SD-WAN powered by Meraki and was evaluated on its ability to execute and completeness of vision.   

With automation and zero– touch provisioning capabilities at our core, agencies juggling hybrid work challenges experience the value of unprecedented visibility and remote management from a centralized dashboard. Overall, the flexibility and adaptability delivered by the Meraki platform enables agencies to securely connect from anywhere at a lower total cost of ownership.  

What’s next?

FedRAMP Moderate authorization is a thorough and rigorous process. Now that Meraki has attained an “In Process” designation, our government platform will undergo a full security assessment, the findings of which will be passed on to our initial agency partner for further review. Once authorized, Meraki will continuously monitor our platform to assure compliance with government security regulations. This also enables a pathway for our state, local, and education requirements (e.g. StateRAMP, etc). We look forward to sharing our progress on this journey.

To learn more about how the Meraki platform can benefit your agency, please contact us today. 

Disclaimer: 

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