Federal GRC Engineering
Authorization Boundary
The set of information system components included within an Authority to Operate, the perimeter the Authorizing Official accepts risk for. NIST SP 800-37 Revision 2 defines the boundary as all components an organization owns, operates, or has direct responsibility for that contribute to the system mission. Boundary definition is the first technical decision in the Risk Management Framework after categorization: a boundary drawn too narrowly leaves dependencies unauthorized, too broadly inflates the assessment scope. Cloud authorization boundaries typically include the customer tenancy, the inherited cloud service controls, and the integrations to other authorized systems.