Skip to content
Merged
Changes from all commits
Commits
File filter

Filter by extension

Filter by extension

Conversations
Failed to load comments.
Loading
Jump to
Jump to file
Failed to load files.
Loading
Diff view
Diff view
49 changes: 49 additions & 0 deletions docs/content/federal_compliance/remediation_slas.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -36,10 +36,59 @@ threshold. **Internet-reachable** is signalled by a finding tag — `internet-re

All the thresholds, tag names, and day counts are editable on the SLA configuration.

Internet-reachability can also come from the computed asset exposure verdict rather than only a tag.
Turn on **Use Asset Exposure for VDR Tiering** to include it. The two sources union, so enabling it
can only tighten a deadline a tag already set, never loosen one.

**FedRAMP VDR becomes mandatory on December 7, 2026.** FedRAMP's Vulnerability Detection and
Response standard becomes mandatory for cloud service providers on that date. Adopting the VDR
preset ahead of it is the recommended path.

## Deadlines by Potential Agency Impact

The three tiers above give every credibly exploitable, internet-reachable finding the same deadline,
whatever the damage its exploitation would do. FedRAMP's published table does not: it crosses those
same exploitability and reachability conditions with a **Potential Agency Impact N-rating** (PAIN),
and the difference across ratings is large.

Turn on **Use PAIN Ratings for VDR Deadlines** to switch from the three tiers to the full table:

| PAIN rating | Exploitable **and** reachable | Exploitable only | Not credibly exploitable |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| N5 — debilitating effect on more than one agency | 2 days | 4 days | 16 days |
| N4 — debilitating on one agency, or disruptive on several | 4 days | 8 days | 64 days |
| N3 — disruptive effect on one agency | 16 days | 32 days | 128 days |
| N2 — narrow customer effect | 48 days | 128 days | 192 days |

Every cell is editable. The shipped numbers are FedRAMP's published Class C values; providers holding
a Class B or Class D certification change the numbers, not the shape.

### Rating your findings

PAIN is set per finding, on the finding itself. It is deliberately a person's judgment rather than
something computed from scanner output: FedRAMP asks the provider to estimate the effect exploitation
would have on the agencies using the service, and explicitly declines to prescribe a method for
arriving at that. A Triage Engine rule can propose a rating from evidence and route the finding for
review — see the **Set Potential Agency Impact** node — but the confirmation is yours to make and
defend.

Two consequences worth knowing before you turn this on:

* **A finding with no rating keeps its base deadline.** Every finding that exists before you start
rating is unrated, so nothing is re-dated the moment you enable this. Deadlines tighten as you rate.
* **N1 has no row, on purpose.** FedRAMP's table starts at N2, so a finding rated N1 carries no VDR
deadline and keeps the FedRAMP Rev 5 window. DefectDojo does not invent a row FedRAMP has not
published.

Enabling PAIN deadlines **replaces** the three tiers rather than combining with them. A finding rated
N2 gets 48 days, not the 4-day tier it would have received without a rating — which is the point of
rating it.

The date each rating was set is recorded, because FedRAMP measures remediation timeframes from
*evaluation* rather than from discovery, and asks reporting to show when each impact reduction
happened. Re-running a rule that assigns the same rating a finding already has does not move that
date.

## Relationship to the ledger

SLA deadlines drive the scheduled completion dates on POA&M items, and determine which items count
Expand Down
Loading