Cloudflare for Government achieves FedRAMP Class D High certification

Cloudflare said Cloudflare for Government has achieved FedRAMP Class D (High) certification, with the National Institute of Standards and Technology as sponsoring agency. FedRAMP is the U.S. government-wide program that standardizes security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for cloud products and services. Cloudflare said achieving certified status means a federal agency sponsored full authorization and the FedRAMP Program Management Office verified it. The company said it held FedRAMP Moderate authorization in 2022 and that moving to High is a substantial jump in control complexity and breach impact. According to Cloudflare, FedRAMP Class C (Moderate) covers systems where compromise could have a serious adverse effect, while Class D (High) is intended for the nation's most sensitive unclassified data, including law enforcement, emergency services, financial systems, and national security uses. The company said a High-level compromise could be catastrophic, potentially leading to loss of life or threats to economic or national security. Cloudflare said it rejected the common industry pattern of a separate, isolated, and often pared-down government cloud that lags commercial releases. It said Cloudflare for Government FedRAMP High runs on the same global network and software stack as its commercial platform, using software-defined regionality. Its Data Localization Suite applies controls so that, for FedRAMP High services, traffic inspection and processing occur exclusively within U.S. data centers. Within the United States, the company said federal agencies get the same Zero Trust security tools, application performance features, and developer product releases as commercial customers when those features ship. Cloudflare also said systems developed for FedRAMP High form the foundation of its pursuit of U.S. Department of Defense Impact Level 4 authorization, the department standard for systems handling controlled unclassified information. Cloudflare said the milestone supports public-sector moves toward modern Zero Trust architecture, protection against sophisticated DDoS attacks, and faster digital services. It said it works with agencies across the U.S. government, including the Department of State and the Department of Commerce.