TL;DR
- FedRAMP Moderate is the most commonly pursued FedRAMP baseline, covering systems whose compromise would cause a 'serious adverse effect'.
- It maps to NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 with around 325 controls.
- It is sufficient for the bulk of civilian federal workloads — internal business systems, citizen-facing transactional services, most agency SaaS.
- Like all FedRAMP baselines, it requires 3PAO assessment, an Agency or JAB authorisation, and ongoing continuous monitoring.
What Moderate Covers
FedRAMP Moderate is the workhorse baseline for US federal cloud. It applies to systems handling information whose loss of confidentiality, integrity or availability would have a 'serious adverse effect on organisational operations, assets, or individuals' — the middle FIPS-199 impact category.
The bulk of federal SaaS, hosting, and platform offerings sit at Moderate. Common workloads include CRM systems, citizen-facing transactional services, HR systems, financial-management systems below the High threshold, and most agency internal tooling.
The Control Set
Moderate is based on NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 with FedRAMP-specific parameter values and additional controls. Around 325 controls span the standard NIST families:
- Access Control (AC) — role-based access, least privilege, session management.
- Audit & Accountability (AU) — logging, log-retention, audit-record review.
- Configuration Management (CM) — baseline configurations, change control.
- Contingency Planning (CP) — backup, disaster recovery, exercise programmes.
- Identification & Authentication (IA) — MFA, identifier management.
- Incident Response (IR) — IR plan, testing, US-CERT reporting.
- Risk Assessment (RA) — vulnerability scanning, risk-assessment cycles.
- System & Communications Protection (SC) — boundary protection, cryptography.
- System & Information Integrity (SI) — flaw remediation, malicious-code protection.
- Supply Chain Risk Management (SR) — added in Rev 5; vendor risk for software/hardware.
How It Differs From High
The High baseline adds controls and tightens parameters across nearly every family. Practically, the differences that matter most for cloud providers are:
| Area | Moderate | High |
|---|---|---|
| Audit retention | Defined by org, typically 90 days online. | Defined by org, typically 1 year online. |
| Penetration testing | Annual. | Annual + after significant change. |
| Personnel screening | Standard. | Enhanced screening for privileged roles. |
| Boundary protection | Required. | Required with deny-by-default + restricted ingress points. |
| Vulnerability scanning | Monthly. | Monthly + on-demand after significant change. |
The Authorisation Process
Same two routes as Moderate or High: Agency ATO or JAB P-ATO. For Moderate, the Agency ATO path is by far the more common choice, because most agencies have sufficient capacity to sponsor a Moderate package and the JAB has historically prioritised High-impact services.
The end-to-end timeline for a Moderate authorisation, from kick-off to ATO, is typically 9-15 months for an experienced provider with a clear cloud-architecture story, longer for first-timers.
FedRAMP 20x — What Is Changing
The FedRAMP PMO has been modernising the programme under the label FedRAMP 20x. The direction of travel includes more automation of evidence collection, reduced reliance on lengthy SSPs, machine-readable control implementation (OSCAL), and faster authorisation timelines.
Note: FedRAMP 20x is changing both the process and the evidence formats. Providers building a Moderate package today should align early with the OSCAL automated-evidence approach rather than producing only narrative SSP content.
When To Choose Moderate Over High
- Your target workloads are FIPS-199 Moderate — internal business systems, transactional services, most SaaS.
- You have not yet won material federal contracts requiring High; the cost of Moderate is much lower.
- Your customer base is mixed federal + commercial — Moderate covers most federal needs and SOC 2 covers commercial.
- You can upgrade to High later if revenue justifies it, without re-architecting most of the platform.
Where Yobitel Sits
Yobitel partners with FedRAMP Moderate-authorised hyperscalers for US-federal-facing deployments. Yobibyte and InferenceBench are positioned for FedRAMP-equivalent assurance pending direct authorisation; for federal customers the realistic short-term path is partner-hosted deployments inside an authorised boundary.