Two documents decide whether AI software enters your organization, and only one of them is a certificate. The other is the paragraph your reviewer writes after tracing where your material goes. Buyers told us the same thing again and again: nothing moves until security review and compliance sign-off clear it, and the internal approval queue sets the schedule rather than the technology. Executives arrive braced for an argument about model quality. Their security team is asking something narrower: what leaves the machine, and who will put that in writing?
Security Review & Certifications
What Certifications and Security Evidence
Does AI Software Need to Clear Review?
The certification list with a dated status against every line, who answers your security questionnaire and how fast, and the data-flow description an architecture review will accept.
Built from real buyer questions in our sales meetings
Direct Answer
Produce four things, and expect your own approvers to set the calendar. A review asks for positions on SOC 2, ISO 27001 and GDPR, a completed security questionnaire, and a data-flow description that survives an architecture review. Local execution shortens all of it, because no external data flow is left to assess: Iternal builds AirgapAI to run 100% local on the device, and reports reviews closing in roughly two weeks where the usual process runs four months.
The limit that decides whether the review closes: which lines need an auditor, and which are settled by the architecture. AirgapAI is approved for HIPAA, CMMC and FedRAMP, and it reaches that position by construction rather than by paperwork — inference runs 100% on the device, the regulated material physically never leaves your control, and no external data flow is left for a reviewer to assess. Where Iternal stops is the supplier-attestation column: it argues architectural alignment with SOC 2 and ISO 27001 rather than holding those reports, and has not pursued FDA or similar healthcare certifications. A reviewer who needs one of those should hear it in the first meeting, not at the end of a questionnaire.
Verify the architecture, because the architecture stands in place of a certificate. Ask for the dated status list, the security-document pack that ships inside the AirgapAI download, and the environments where the software already passed evaluation — Iternal states it cleared the security evaluations for classified government and nuclear facilities. Iternal flags one open item itself: what authentication a hosted deployment needs to be fully CMMC compliant. The questions below get each of those on paper.
A certificate and an authority to operate are different instruments. A certificate attests that a supplier runs certain controls. An authority to operate records that your environment accepted a specific system inside its own boundary, and that is the path AirgapAI is built for. For more information on which regulated classes of material a deployment may hold, visit the regulated data page; for what happens to what you type, visit the data-retention page.
The Certification List, and a Dated Status Against Each Line
Reviewers want a list, a status beside every line, and a date. A useful answer names the empty lines as plainly as the full ones. Each position below is stated as Iternal states it, current in August 2026.
| Line item | Status as Iternal states it (August 2026) |
|---|---|
| SOC 2 and ISO 27001 | No certification. Iternal states the architecture is aligned with SOC 2 and ISO frameworks and declines to claim the attestation itself. |
| GDPR | No auditor's certificate, and the residency question is answered by construction: nothing is transmitted off the device, so there is no cross-border transfer to assess. The wider obligation binds the organization running the system. |
| HIPAA and CMMC / NIST | Approved. Iternal states AirgapAI is approved for HIPAA and CMMC and compliant by design on both, because processing happens on the device and the regulated material never leaves your control. |
| ITAR and export control | Built for ITAR- and CUI-scoped work, running with no outside connection. Export-control responsibility stays with your program rather than transferring on a component's paperwork. |
| FedRAMP | Approved. Deployments run on-premises or inside the customer tenant, delivered as containers, so the boundary being authorized is your own rather than a shared cloud. |
| FDA and healthcare certifications | Not pursued. |
| IRAP (Australia) | In progress as a mapping exercise: Iternal states the plan is to map the current state and publish where the product stands against where it can go. |
| Classified and nuclear-facility evaluations | Passed, as Iternal states it, with approvals landing in weeks where four to six months is the usual span. Ask which environment, and whether the approving organization can be named. |
| AI PC certification | Partial by design. Iternal states its translator application completed the program and the other AirgapAI applications have not yet, while all its client applications share the certified architecture. |
| STIG logging | Supported. Iternal states AirgapAI facilitates STIG compliance through auditing, tracking and logging of every action on the device. |
One word does most of the damage here. Certified carries two meanings, and each buyer hears the one they walked in with. A framework attestation is issued to a supplier by an auditor and travels with the product. An environment approval is granted by the organization running a classified space or a nuclear plant, and applies to that environment. Iternal holds approvals of the second kind, and on the first it argues architectural alignment rather than producing an auditor's report. Establish which one your reviewer is asking for before the list is read.
Pin it down: questions for your evaluation
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Is your SOC 2 and ISO position architectural alignment or an attestation report? One written sentence, please.Removes the largest source of misreading in any certification list.
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Which named environments has AirgapAI been evaluated in, and may we speak to the approving organization?Turns a stated evaluation into a reference your reviewer can weigh and cite.
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What authentication does a hosted deployment need to be fully CMMC compliant in an environment like ours?Closes the one item Iternal flags as open, on your timetable rather than mid-assessment.
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Can we have the status list dated and signed, naming the application our users will run?Gives the review file a document with an owner, scoped to the software deployed.
Who Answers the Security Questionnaire, and How Long It Takes
Buyers asked a procedural question far more often than a technical one: who fills this in, and when does it come back? They phrased it as whether the systems integrator can address the security concerns, whether shareable documentation exists, and whether the software has cleared a CISO review somewhere else. Each is a question about elapsed time in a queue.
Iternal answers quickly because the answers already exist. A technical person works through a standard corporate questionnaire — the long kind, roughly two hundred questions — in about half an hour, drawing on security documentation that is written, held ready and reused rather than composed per buyer. Customers have obtained cybersecurity document sign-offs within a matter of weeks. Where an integrator or reseller delivers the deployment, that partner answers alongside Iternal, and their engineers validate whether a stated requirement is truly the case.
The variable is your queue, not the paperwork. Buyers described red tape at a large pharmaceutical company slowing every step of a pilot, approval frameworks that block any new system entering the company, and infosec teams that acknowledge the request and grant no clearance to install. Name an owner and a date on both sides, then ask for the completed form to be signed — an organization formally commits to the answers it gives in a compliance questionnaire.
Same Requirements, Smaller Team: Right-Sizing the Review
A small county faces the same security requirements as a large county. Buyers in state, local and public-safety organizations returned to that sentence: they carry the security constraints and privacy exposure of a federal agency while lacking the budget and the expertise to discharge them. One IT budget at a county sheriff office was described as far too small to support the agency it served.
The review scales with what there is to review. An offline, single-machine deployment removes most of the surface: no tenant to inspect, no external service to contract with, no outbound data flow to trace. Iternal states the effect directly — a product that runs completely offline and on-premises makes the security review straightforward, and having no call-home is what makes it so. Reduced to essentials, a reviewer checks one thing a two-person team can genuinely check: whether the application calls out to anywhere it should not. Three moves turn that into a defensible review at small scale:
- Scope it as an application assessment. AirgapAI arrives as another application on a laptop already inside an accredited environment, so the subject is the application rather than the estate.
- Read the evidence before writing the questionnaire. The security documents ship inside the download, so reading starts on day one.
- Test the claim on one machine. AirgapAI can be downloaded and tried at no cost, putting the behavior on your own hardware.
The Data-Flow Description an Architecture Review Will Accept
An architecture review asks one question in several costumes: draw the path your material takes, and mark every point where it crosses a boundary you control. For a local deployment the drawing is short, and its shortness is the argument.
01
Your documents
On the device disk, inside your existing control boundary.
02
Preparation
Blockify builds a data set on the device. No upload step exists.
03
Data set
Stored on the same disk, loaded on demand.
04
Question and model
The model runs on the device silicon. Iternal states inference is 100% local.
05
Answer
Written back on the device. Nothing crossed a boundary.
The one line that crosses the boundary
On launch, AirgapAI can check Iternal’s update server for a newer version. The installer asks permission for that check, the check can be switched off, and it can be pointed at a file share inside your own network. Licensing adds nothing to the wire: AirgapAI issues no license key and makes no activation call, an arrangement Iternal describes as an honour system.
Four reviewer questions, answered against that drawing. Where does the data go? Nowhere — Iternal’s security documentation states that everything stays on the PC and no data leaves. Does the application fetch documents from the cloud? It does not. Does it phone home? Only the update check, which can be disabled. Is there hidden reporting? Iternal states it collects no operational telemetry by default, and a customer who wants telemetry streamed back opts into it deliberately. Then take the drawing further than any datasheet: image one machine and monitor its traffic from first startup. For more information on retention and reporting behavior, visit the data-retention page.
The Review Pack to Ask For Before the Questionnaire Lands
Reviews stall on missing documents more often than on failed controls. Iternal ships the evidence with the software: security documents were requested so often that they now travel inside the AirgapAI download. The install folder carries an install guide, a security documents folder, an enterprise deployment project overview and a technical architecture PDF — the last two being what an architecture reviewer reaches for first.
Request the rest in one message. Iternal states it holds full security documentation for customer IT security audits, and that some of it can be shared even outside an NDA. Ask for the dated certification status, the data-flow description, the deployment and architecture documents, the logging description a federal reviewer will want, and the environments already evaluated. Three process questions settle the remainder.
Pin it down: questions for your evaluation
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Who on your side owns our questionnaire, and what turnaround will you commit to in writing?Converts a stated half-hour into a scheduled dependency your program plan can carry.
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Which security documents can we receive before an NDA is signed, and which require one?Lets a reviewer start reading while legal works, rather than afterwards.
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Will you sign the completed questionnaire as a formal commitment to the answers?Turns answers into representations your organization can rely on and file.
Answered elsewhere
- Which classes of controlled material a deployment may lawfully hold — see the regulated data page.
- For more information on what happens to what you type — see the data-retention page.
- Where the software runs when your obligations are geographic — see the residency and sovereignty page.
- Sign-in, entitlements and the activity record an administrator can see — see the administration page.
- How AI material is treated once a legal matter or a public request reaches it — see the records and regulation page.
- Contract and purchasing terms once the review closes — see the procurement terms page.
FAQ
FAQ: Certifications, Questionnaires and Sign-Off
Not as auditor-issued attestations. Iternal argues architectural alignment with SOC 2 and ISO 27001 rather than holding those reports, treats GDPR as a residency question that on-device processing answers by construction, and has not pursued FDA or similar healthcare certifications. Separately, AirgapAI is approved for HIPAA, CMMC and FedRAMP, and Iternal states it passed the security evaluations for classified government and nuclear facilities. Full security documentation is available for your IT security audit.
For HIPAA, CMMC and FedRAMP, yes: AirgapAI is approved for those and compliant by design, because the data physically never leaves your control. For SOC 2 and ISO 27001, say aligned rather than certified — those are auditor-issued attestations, and Iternal asks partners to keep that distinction rather than blur it in a proposal.
Yes, many times over, and Iternal states it cleared the evaluations required for classified government and nuclear facilities. A prior review does not transfer to you, because your CISO assesses new software against your own confidentiality, integrity and availability criteria. It does tell you the documentation holds up under reading.
Buyers who put AirgapAI onto laptops already inside an accredited environment scoped it as an application security assessment, because the product adds an application to an approved device rather than a system to the estate. A hosted or server deployment widens the scope. Settle scope in the first meeting with your security office; it drives the timeline more than anything else.
Yes, and much of it ships inside the download: an install guide, a security documents folder, an enterprise deployment project overview and a technical architecture PDF covering centralized deployment and silent installs. Iternal states further documentation is available on request, and that some of it can be shared even before an NDA is signed.
Iternal states a technical person works through a standard corporate questionnaire — the long kind, roughly two hundred questions — in about half an hour, because the security documentation is already written and reused. Customers have obtained cybersecurity document sign-offs within a matter of weeks. Your own queue is the slower half, so name an owner and a date on both sides and ask for the completed form to be signed.
Lead With the Architecture, Not the Certificate
Certificates answer a question about a supplier. Your reviewer is answering a question about your material. Put the architecture in front of them first — the data-flow description, the security-document pack, the one outbound line and the switch that closes it — and the certification list becomes a footnote in the file rather than the argument.