GovRAMP Accelerator
Start transforming state and local government. Zero delay.
With Knox, get GovRAMP verified immediately — no separate compliant environment required. Software providers can run on Knox's already-Authorized environment. Skip building your own.
The Same Core Security Capabilities
Identity & access management
Multi-factor authentication
Logging & monitoring
Vulnerability management
Configuration management
Incident response
Continuous monitoring
Encryption & data protection
Secure software development
100s
of security controls implemented and continuously demonstrated
FedRAMP · NIST 800-53
vs.
110
security requirements to implement
CMMC Level 2 · NIST 800-171
Equivalency vs. certification
The truth most CMMC teams discover too late
One rule reshapes the entire FedRAMP versus CMMC calculation — and many teams find it late.
FedRAMP Moderate security is already the price of admission for putting CUI in the cloud.
You are doing the work regardless. The open question is what you receive in return.
DFARS 252.204-7012
32 CFR CMMC Rule
Any external cloud service that stores, processes, or transmits CUI must meet FedRAMP Moderate — certified or equivalent. A Department of Defense memo made the bar explicit: equivalency means meeting 100% of the FedRAMP Moderate control baseline, assessed by a 3PAO, without federal agency sponsorship. During a Level 2 assessment, a C3PAO will examine every cloud service in your boundary.
Stop at Equivalency
The security bar, and nothing more
Meets the full FedRAMP Moderate baseline, 3PAO-assessed
No FedRAMP Marketplace listing
Does not carry across to civilian agencies
Re-justified to every customer who asks
Carry Through to Certification
The same effort, a far larger return
Meets the same security bar
Adds the federal review path
Reaches every agency — civilian and defense
One reusable certification, not a per-customer attestation
The security and assessment effort is nearly identical. Knox compresses the federal review path from years to 90 days.
Scope, not difficulty
Why FedRAMP covers more than CMMC
Think of CMMC as a subset of FedRAMP. FedRAMP was designed to secure cloud services across the entire federal government — so it includes a broader set of controls, deeper documentation, and more rigorous assess
A company capable of meeting FedRAMP's requirements has already built mature capabilities around the same areas assessed during a CMMC audit:
Identity governance
Access controls
Security operations
Vulnerability management
Change management
Existing security documentation
Existing security documentation
Existing security documentation
Existing security documentation
SECURITY BY INHERITANCE
Don't build the foundation twice
One of the biggest challenges with CMMC is building and documenting the underlying security infrastructure. A FedRAMP-certified environment solves much of this through inheritance.
You Focus On
The smaller, organization-specific set
Instead of building every control from scratch, your team concentrates on the requirements unique to your organization.
Network protections
Monitoring systems
Identity controls
The result: dramatically reduced implementation effort and audit complexity.
inherited from the fedramp boundary
You deploy in. You inherit the architecture.
Significant portions of the security architecture come with the boundary— no rebuild required.
Infrastructure security
Logging platforms
Vulnerability management
Encryption services
Network protections
Monitoring systems
Identity controls
Continuous monitoring
One honest caveat: Inheritance covers the cloud side of your environment. CMMC assesses your organization as a whole — so any CUI that lives on endpoints, in email, or on-premises, along with personnel, physical, and training controls, remains your responsibility. The value of a FedRAMP-certified boundary is that it removes the largest and most complex portion of that work.
The Business Case
Start with an advantage,
not a blank page
Organizations pursuing CMMC alone often spend months building security capabilities before they're ready for assessment. Operating within a FedRAMP-certified environment, you start ahead.
Existing control implementations
Existing evidence collection
Existing security documentation
Existing audit history
Faster readiness
Existing implementations and evidence shorten time to assessment.
Lower compliance cost
Existing implementations and evidence shorten time to assessment.
Less disruption
Existing implementations and evidence shorten time to assessment.
For vendors pursuing both federal civilian and DoD opportunities, FedRAMP is no longer just a compliance requirement, it's a force multiplier for every future framework.
FedRAMP first, then CMMC
A more efficient sequence
The traditional approach rebuilds controls more than once. Leading with a FedRAMP-certified environment lets you inherit the majority of technical controls, then reuse that work for CMMC.
Traditional Approach
Build everything, more than once
Build security controls
Pursue CMMC
Pursue Fedramp
Rebuild and expand controls
A More Efficient Approach
Inherit once, leverage everywhere
Deploy into a FedRAMP-certified environment such as Knox
Inherit the majority of the required technical controls
Satisfy the FedRAMP Moderate cloud requirement that CMMC depends on
Carry the same controls and evidence through to FedRAMP and CMMC certification together
Less duplicate work. A stronger overall security posture.
The Difference
Trusted Partners
Knox already runs the compliant infrastructure behind FedRAMP authorization for many of the fastest-growing software companies in govtech. The Accelerator extends that same platform to state and local — one partner, every government market.
Get Started
Your product is ready for government.
Now your compliance can be, too.
Join the software companies using the Knox GovRAMP Accelerator to reach thousands of state and local government organizations — without slowing down to build it themselves.