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Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS)

What does FIPS mean?

FIPS stands for Federal Information Processing Standards. These standards are determined by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) under the permission of the Secretary of Commerce under the Information Technology Management Reform Act. They are intended to address security standards for federal government computer systems in areas that existing federal laws and regulations don’t address.

How is FIPS compliance determined?

FIPS dictates many different types of security and auditing practices that are based on the type of data being stored and protected. FIPS 140-2 covers cryptographic standards for securing sensitive non-confidential data. It requires companies to enable security safety measures that are broken down into four different security levels. Some of the other FIPS standards relate to things like key-hashing, AES encryption and more.

How does FIPS data center & cloud hosting work?

TaxDome’s runs on computers that run in an encrypted hosting environment. You can upload files, and store sensitive data using 256-AES encryption, NIST-compliant security and information handling safeguards across our network of SSL-A data centers. Our cloud environment can be customized to fall under specific FIPS standards for your organization.

How do I audit & comply with FIPS hosting standards?

Our team audits our systems using SSAE-16 SOC standards. We also proactively patch any security vulnerabilities and update the software for you so you can work on other goals for your organization.

Are there any other compliance laws that are close to FIPS?

FIPS works collectively with other federal data security standards to handle any compliance issues. It’s the only federal compliance standard of its kind that serves that purpose.