National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) SP 800-53
The US Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) was established to provide a standardized approach for assessing, monitoring, and authorizing cloud computing products and services. FedRAMP is based on the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) SP 800-53 standard, augmented by FedRAMP controls and control enhancements. For more information about Azure support for NIST SP 800-53 controls, see Azure FedRAMP documentation.
Note
NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 4 was withdrawn on 23 September 2021 and superseded by NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5.
Azure Policy regulatory compliance built-in initiatives
For extra customer assistance, Microsoft provides the Azure Policy regulatory compliance built-in initiatives for Azure and Azure Government, which map to NIST SP 800-53 compliance domains and controls:
- Azure
- Azure Government
Regulatory compliance in Azure Policy provides built-in initiative definitions to view a list of controls and compliance domains based on responsibility – customer, Microsoft, or shared. For Microsoft-responsible controls, we provide extra audit result details based on third-party attestations and our control implementation details to achieve that compliance. Each NIST SP 800-53 control is associated with one or more Azure Policy definitions. These policies may help you assess compliance with the control; however, compliance in Azure Policy is only a partial view of your overall compliance status. Azure Policy helps to enforce organizational standards and assess compliance at scale. Through its compliance dashboard, it provides an aggregated view to evaluate the overall state of the environment, with the ability to drill down to more granular status.
Resources
- Azure compliance documentation
- Azure enables a world of compliance
- Microsoft 365 compliance offerings
- Compliance on the Microsoft Trust Center
- What is Azure Government?
- Explore Azure Government
- Microsoft government solutions
- FedRAMP documents and templates
- NIST SP 800-53 Security and Privacy Controls for Information Systems and Organizations