Jerry Petersen 
- The Knox Landing Zone has received FedRAMP High authorization to operate from the Tennessee Valley Authority
- The landing zone works as an environment where commercial applications can be deployed and be made to inherit the landing zone’s security boundary
- In early September, Knox Systems announced the launch of its DISA IL5 Landing Zone
The Tennessee Valley Authority has given the Knox Landing Zone authorization to operate at the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program High baseline. The TVA is the 18th agency to have given the pre-authorized, hardened cloud environment an ATO, Knox Systems said Thursday.
How Does the Knox Landing Zone Work?
The Knox Landing Zone works as an environment where applications can be deployed by various commercial companies, including those that offer software-as-a-service or artificial intelligence. Those applications can then inherit the government security boundary at which the landing zone is authorized to operate by a particular agency. In the case of users at the TVA, the application security boundary is at FedRAMP High.
Hemant Baidwan, who was named Knox executive chief information security officer in March, explained the intended benefit of the landing zone, saying, “Government should not have to authorize the same infrastructure over and over again for every piece of commercial software it wants to use.”
“TVA marks our 18th ATO and another step toward a future where government agencies can securely access the best commercial technology without every company spending critical resources rebuilding the same federal infrastructure,” the former Department of Homeland Security CISO added.
What Other Authorizations Do Knox Landing Zones Enjoy?
Apart from FedRAMP High, Knox landing zones are also cleared to operate at FedRAMP Moderate, Defense Information Systems Agency Impact Level 4 and, most recently, Impact Level 5. Announced earlier this month, the Knox IL5 Landing Zone would make it possible for deployed applications to handle sensitive Department of War data, including controlled unclassified information.
The Knox IL5 Landing Zone was sponsored by the U.S. Space Force.
Commenting on the development, Baidwan said at the time, “With Space Force’s sponsorship, we’re bringing mission-ready capabilities into some of the Department of War’s most sensitive workloads, both at the height of security and at speed.”
For her part, Knox CEO Irina Denisenko said, “The American warfighter deserves the same leading edge technology the private sector can access – without sacrificing security. Space Force’s sponsorship of the Knox IL5 environment makes this possible at speed and scale.”
