IRAPInformation Security Registered Assessors Program
An ASD program of independent assessors who evaluate ICT systems against Australian government security requirements.
In detail
The Information Security Registered Assessors Program (IRAP) is administered by the Australian Signals Directorate. IRAP assessors are independent ICT security professionals certified to evaluate systems against the Information Security Manual and assess fitness for handling Australian government data at PROTECTED, SECRET and TOP SECRET classifications. Cloud services that have been IRAP-assessed (Microsoft Azure, AWS, Google Cloud) appear on the ASD's public list and are usable by government agencies and their suppliers.
Why it matters for Australian business
For Australian businesses that sell to government or operate in regulated sectors, IRAP-assessed cloud services and IRAP-assessed system architectures are often a procurement requirement. For private SMBs IRAP is overkill, but knowing whether your hosting provider is IRAP-assessed (and at what level) is a useful credibility signal when responding to enterprise customers.