Snowflake Data Cloud completes IRAP assessment

Data cloud company Snowflake has completed an Information Security Registered Assessors Program (IRAP) assessment, confirming that its Data Cloud has achieved the Australian Government security status of ‘protected’ on selected deployments. A certified, third-party IRAP assessor deemed Snowflake’s Data Cloud to be aligned with IRAP’s ‘Protected’-level control requirements, enabling Australian Government agencies to deploy a range of workloads on the Snowflake Data Cloud.

The IRAP assessment ensures cloud services are secured with automated and comprehensive security controls for authorised use by the Australian Government. Snowflake was assessed against controls identified in the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) Australian Government Information Security Manual (ISM), a necessary requirement before departments can adopt any platforms and tools provided by external vendors.

As a result, Australian Government agencies can now use Snowflake’s Data Cloud to leverage scalability, elasticity and data sharing for near-instant, secure and governed access to their entire network of data. Peter O’Connor, Vice President of Sales (Asia Pacific) at Snowflake, said the completion of the IRAP assessment enables Snowflake to work with all Australian Government agencies since many departments require the ‘protected’ status to be reached.

“We anticipate strong growth for Snowflake in the Australian Government marketplace and look forward to providing agencies with an automatic approval solution to process, store or communicate sensitive or classified information on Snowflake,” O’Connor said.

Siddique Chaudhry, Manager (Government Product Security) at Snowflake, noted that meeting IRAP compliance at the ‘Protected’ level signifies Snowflake’s continued investment in improving its security posture.

Thousands of organisations mobilise their data with Snowflake’s Data Cloud to unite siloed data, discover and securely share data, and execute diverse analytic workloads. A unique group of capabilities power the Data Cloud, including the scale and efficiency of a multi-cluster shared data architecture and the seamless interoperability of working with data across multiple public clouds as if they were one. The Data Cloud also includes integrated security features and modern data sharing, which allows organisations to share and receive live data with each other nearly instantly, without having to move or copy data.

O’Connor added that achieving protected status will allow Snowflake to work with agencies in the federal, state and local government levels to support their cloud-first strategy.

“We now look forward to supporting government agencies to manage ever-increasing amounts of data through a platform which provides for governed and secure data sharing in real time, while encouraging a government-wide data culture,” O’Connor said.

Globally, Snowflake is also FedRAMP Authorised at the Moderate baseline on selected deployments. Snowflake also complies with SOC Type 2, SOC Type 1, ISO 27001, FIPS 140-2, AICPA/SOC, CMS ARS 3.1, PCI DSS and HISTRUST.

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