Blog Post: BPOS-Federal & FISMA

By: Eron Kelly

I am pleased to share that BPOS-Federal has received FISMA (Federal Information Security Management Act) certification and accreditation.

FISMA was passed in 2002 and created a process for federal agencies to certify and accredit the security of information management systems. FISMA certification and accreditation indicates that a federal agency has approved a particular solution for its use in line with the level of security established by that agency.

The certification and accreditation has resulted in an official ?Authorization to Operate? (ATO) issued on April 19 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for Microsoft?s Business Productivity Online Services-Federal, which includes Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Office Communications Online. It follows a similar authorization issued by the USDA in November for the Microsoft data centers that will deliver these services to the USDA. We plan to pursue FISMA certification and accreditation for Office 365, our next generation cloud productivity suite, after it launches.

As a result of this action, the USDA is migrating 120,000 employees to Microsoft?s BPOS-Federal service. This means that the USDA can use BPOS-Federal to handle a variety of tasks. For example, the USDA?s Food Security programs can use BPOS-Federal to respond to food safety emergencies, the U.S. Forest Service can use BPOS-Federal to coordinate its efforts to fight forest fires, and the Foreign Agriculture Service can use BPOS-Federal to manage the distribution of food aid to millions of people around the world.

We take our responsibility to protect customer data very seriously, and our cloud services already meet some of the industry?s most rigorous global security and privacy standards. FISMA for BPOS-Federal is just the latest example.

We are very excited by this news and committed to serving the needs of our public sector customers. You can learn more about the specific elements of the latest BPOS-Federal solution here, and about Microsoft Online Services generally at www.microsoft.com/online. If you have questions about Microsoft?s cloud offerings for government, ask your Microsoft rep or your partner, or you can ask in the comments below.

Thanks,

Eron

Monica Bellucci Minki van der Westhuizen Katharine Towne Malia Jones Jennifer ODell