SOLUTION BRIEF
SOLUTION BRIEF

Archer Public Sector Solutions
Information assurance (IA) professionals face many challenges. A barrage of new requirements
and threats, a need for better risk insight, silos imposed by people and technologies, and ashortage of resources create a complex environment for IA teams. Compliance is a significant
challenge, even before factoring in agency budget constraints, new cyber threats, and newand increasing requirements. The additional challenge of trying to integrate real operational
security data into compliance activities complicates these efforts further.
Risk insight is yet another significant challenge for IA teams. Applying cookie-cutter processes
and controls to every asset results in underprotection or overprotection, typically at great
expense. Security management tools can determine how many patches are missing or how
many vulnerabilities are present, but very few provide real mission context. As a result,risk decisions are made at a management level without the full risk picture, and security
administrators do not know which findings or deficiencies to prioritize.
Compliance with Office of Management and Budget (OMB) memos and circulars, as well
as Assessment and Authorization (A&A) required by the Federal Information Security
Management Act (FISMA), costs the government billions of dollars per year. The current IAparadigm is expensive and IA budgets are stretched to accommodate the tools, staffing
and training to adequately meet current and future challenges. Moreover, silos that exist
within the public sector community—at large, individual departments and even workflows
for a single office—can create disparity and redundancy in tools, processes, standards, dataand language.
Align security, compliance and risk management in one process
Establishing a central repository for risk- and control-related data is the first step in ensuring
an accurate and comprehensive view of risk that can be readily conveyed to all stakeholders.
By breaking down data and communication silos between tools and people, you can exploit
this streamlined data flow to save time, increase data sharing and make better informed
risk decisions. Use of common tools and processes allows you to track and manage FISMA,OMB and other compliance requirements and leverage assessment data for reuse, including
Government Accountability Office (GAO) and other audits. Integrating automated and manualcontinuous monitoring tools helps satisfy compliance requirements, drive faster defectremediation, reduce actual risk, and provide complete, current risk metrics.

The Archer Public Sector Solutions advantage
Archer Public Sector Solutions are purpose-built to meet the unique needs of the publicsector, providing capabilities essential for effective information assurance program
management and maximizing existing agency infrastructure investments.
Harness the Power of Convergence
Armed with a common platform and taxonomy, and integrations with scanners, sensors
and other security tools, IA teams can collect and share data in a collaborativeenvironment. This infrastructure eliminates the need to constantly import, export andreformat data, breaking down silos and making it faster and easier for stakeholders
to share information. Information sharing provides stakeholders with a broader viewto make the informed risk-based decisions to reduce risk and ensure compliance.
Mature Your Security ProgramFor many years, FISMA was considered a checkbox process that required a set ofCertification and Accreditation (C&A, now A&A) artifacts and would be reviewed
at least every three years. Recently, OMB has directed agencies to continuously
monitor their systems to ensure that they are operating within its approved security
posture. Archer Public Sector Solutions produce A&A artifacts that could enhancecompanion solutions to enable contingency planning, continuous monitoring, andthird-party and supply-chain management. This integrated approach pushes theorganization to manage and continuously monitor security functions in a more informedand efficient way.
Leverage True Agility
Applications, workflows, and reports and dashboards can be quickly reconfigured
to adjust to changes in your internal policies or processes. As regulations, guidanceor programs change, the solution can be modified to ensure your processes areappropriately aligned.

Archer Public Sector Solutions
Archer Public Sector Solutions allow you to leverage people, process and technology tobuild an integrated approach to assessment and authorization, continuous monitoring,plan of action and milestones (POA&M) management, and overall risk management.
In addition to solving IA challenges, they can also provide significant return on investment
by saving labor hours, reducing software license and training costs, increasing
productivity, reducing risks and incidents, and bringing the IA organization into animproved, common culture through improved data sharing and the use of a common
taxonomy and workflow.

Unlike mostsolutions currently
used within thepublic sector, Archer
is not hardcoded as
one rigid use case.

Archer Public Sector Solutions | 2

Archer Public Sector Solutions includes several use cases to meet the specific needsof your organization:
 Archer Assessment & Authorization allows your organization to comply withFISMA and OMB requirements while improving overall security and controls.
It enables a system of record for every person, location, component and tierin your organization and lays the foundation for a comprehensive information
assurance management program, including management of all phases of NIST
RMF, DIACAP, DOD RMF and FedRAMP. Archer Assessment & Authorization
also integrates with Archer Continuous Monitoring to provide true ongoing
authorization (OA) capabilities.

About Archer
Archer is a leading
provider of integrated risk
management (IRM) solutions
that enable customers toimprove strategic decisionmaking and operational
resilience with a modern
technology platform that

 Archer Continuous Monitoring helps you prioritize security risk data andautomate control assessments. It allows you to build an aggregate risk viewat any level of your organization and enables faster, more targeted responseto emerging risks. It enhances your FISMA and OMB compliance activities byverifying that information systems abide by authorization agreements andoperate within acceptable levels of risk.

supports qualitative and Archer Plan of Action & Milestones (POA&M) Management allows you tocentralize findings and defects and then track remediation efforts into dates,
milestones and costs. It al so provides the capability to route POA&Ms throughformal approval and review processes and capture performance management
and cost metrics.

manage risk and complianceArcher Public Sector Solutions are designed to meet the unique needs of government
agencies. They provide capabilities to help improve information assurance program
management, maximize existing agency infrastructure investments, and build an
integrated approach to meeting FISMA and OMB requirements.

quantitative analysis driven
by both business andIT impacts. As true pioneers
in GRC software, Archerremains solely dedicatedto helping customers
domains, from traditional
operational risk to emerging
issues such as ESG. With
over 20 years in the risk
management industry,
the Archer customer baserepresents one of the largest
pure risk management
communities globally, withmore than 1,200 customers
including more than 50%of the Fortune 500.
Visit www.ArcherIRM.com.

@ArcherIRM

Archer Integrated Risk Management©2023 Archer Technologies LLC. All rights reserved. Archer and the Archer logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of ArcherTechnologies LLC in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Archerbelieves the information in this document is accurate. The information is subject to change without notice. 10/23 Solution Brief.