Chainguard + Second Front: A faster, more secure path into government markets

For software companies, entering the U.S. federal market is a major opportunity — but the path to readiness is traditionally slow, expensive, and complex. Authorization timelines can stretch years, requiring teams to rebuild infrastructure, remediate security findings, and navigate dense accreditation requirements across frameworks like FedRAMP, DoD Impact Levels (IL2–IL6), and CMMC. According to top third-party assessment organization (3PAO) Schellman, approximately 95% of delays in issuing a system “Recommendation” are due to a Cloud Service Offering (CSO) having far too many open vulnerabilities in container scan records.

Chainguard and Second Front (2F) have partnered to offer a modern, streamlined alternative for software companies pursuing FedRAMP Authorization to Operate (ATO), DoD IL accreditations, and other federal compliance milestones.

By combining Chainguard’s secure-by-default container images with Second Front’s Game Warden, a fully accredited, authorized DevSecOps platform, software companies gain a scalable, efficient path to deliver secure applications from their first deployment into impact-levelled DoD environments and FedRAMP-authorized government clouds — while simplifying alignment with CMMC and related cybersecurity frameworks.

This joint approach is already helping organizations accelerate timelines, reduce vulnerabilities, and scale federal deployments with greater confidence.

Secure your software supply chain with Chainguard Containers

A hardened software supply chain is a foundational requirement for operating in federal environments. Traditional container images often introduce unnecessary risk due to:

• Excessive packages not required for your application

• Hundreds of known vulnerabilities that continuously accrue over time

• Inconsistent patching efforts that are highly manual and create engineering toil

• Limited provenance or SBOM support

Chainguard Containers solves these challenges by providing minimal, hardened, and secure-by-design images with built-in FIPS-validated cryptography and DISA STIG-aligned configurations that are continuously built from source and guarded under a CVE remediation SLA (7 days for critical, 14 days for high, medium, and low). Chainguard Containers offer:

• Up to 97% fewer vulnerabilities than traditional images

• Daily rebuilt container images that incorporate upstream CVE patches

• Provenance and SBOMs to simplify documentation

• Built-in FIPS-validated cryptography and STIG-hardening to satisfy stringent federal security and compliance controls

• Reduced security debt and remediation workload

This drastically lowers the risk profile before the first line of application code is deployed — unlocking faster, cleaner accreditation paths.

Deploy securely and compliantly with Second Front’s Game Warden

Even with a hardened supply chain, commercial teams must still meet stringent infrastructure, monitoring, and operational controls.

Game Warden provides a DevSecOps platform with inherited security authorizations, eliminating the need for companies to build and maintain their own compliant environments.

Game Warden delivers:

• Inherited compliance controls for the entire Federal Government, including DoD IL2-6+ and up to FedRAMP High. 

• Day two operations with continuous monitoring and ongoing support

• Pipelines, enforcement, and documentation aligned to NIST SP 800-53 and the DoD RMF

• A repeatable, scalable model for deploying commercial SaaS applications into government networks

Instead of reinventing compliance-heavy infrastructure, teams focus on their product while Game Warden manages and secures the underlying platform and compliance layer.

How the joint approach works

Together, Chainguard and Second Front offer a clear, modern path into federal environments:

1. Build securely with Chainguard Containers

Start with secure, minimal, continuously updated base images that dramatically reduce vulnerabilities and improve compliance posture.

2. Deploy into Game Warden

Onboard and operate your software in Game Warden’s compliant hosting environment, inheriting its security controls, monitoring, and documentation to meet stringent government standards.

3. Accelerate authorization

A hardened supply chain combined with a compliant deployment platform removes common accreditation blockers, enabling faster government readiness.

The Proof: $2 Million saved and ATO in under 90 days

The value of this partnership is proven by real-world success.

In a recent case study, Collaboration.Ai, an AI-driven innovation management software company, faced the challenge of making its product available to the DoD. They needed a secure, repeatable path to deliver their platform into Department of Defense environments.

By combining Chainguard Containers for supply chain security with Game Warden for compliant deployment, the company achieved a significantly faster, more secure route to mission users.

This combined approach enabled Collaboration.AI to save millions while delivering mission-critical capabilities to government users faster, more securely, and without the typical multi-year lift.

👉 Read the full AWS case study.

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