Ten Things You Need to Know About CMMC

 

Issued by the Department of Defense (DoD) of the United States for improved cybersecurity, Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) is intended to serve as a verification mechanism. It determines the framework to implement cybersecurity policies across the defense industrial base (DIB) of the government. DIB includes more than 300,000 companies in the supply chain.

CMMC will be a requirement for the contractors or vendors of defense who want to work with the Department of Defense. However, it will not be required by all the contractors immediately. CMMC intends to safeguard the Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) and Federal Contract Information (FCI) across the DoD supply chain. CUI data is created or possessed by the government or its affiliated entity, and it pertains to the legal or financial dealings, intelligence or infrastructural data inputs, or other data.

Hence, the DoD contractors/vendors should be aware of the CMMC compliance requirements. With this, they will remain engaged with the updated certification measures for improved cybersecurity.

For effective compliance, you need to understand the CMMC framework. This article lists the ten things you need to know about CMMC.

·        Do You Have A Dod Contract?

Over 300,000 companies are involved either fully or partially with the Defense Industrial Base (DIB). They might be either contracting directly with the DoD or subcontracting to bigger firms. Irrespective of their relationship with the DoD, all the contractors have to fulfill the requirements of Level 1, which is the basic cyber hygiene level.

 

·        You Should Already at Level 1

If the DoD contractors aim to clear the first level audit, they need to implement 17 controls of the NIST 800-171 rev1. All federal contractors must meet the requirements of this level. This is the minimum criterion which the contractors must deploy. The 17 capability domains in the CMMC model are:

 

·        Access Control (AC)

·        Risk Management (RM)

·        Incident Response (IR)

·        Asset Management (AM)

·        Security Assessment (CA)

·        Maintenance (MA)

·        Media Protection (MP)

·        Awareness and Training (AT)

·        Situational Awareness (SA)

·        Personnel Security (PS)

·        Audit and Accountability (AU)

·        System and Communications Protection (SC)

·        Physical Protection (PE)

·        Configuration Management (CM)

·        System and Information Integrity (SI)

·        Recovery (RE)

·        Identification and Authentication (IA)

 

·        CMMC is Good for the Industry

CMMC aims to create a new baseline that ensures that all the vendors will make an effective and efficient investment in cybersecurity. CMMC framework will imbibe the active process and practice for a standard evaluation of the capability of DoD contractors.

 

·        CMMC Compliance Does Not Replace DFARS 252.204-7012

CMMC compliance builds upon the framework of DFARS 252.204-7012 and NIST 800-171. It clarifies some control segments and adds the requirements for improved cybersecurity.

 

·        Shoot for Level 3 to Start

Level 3 of CMMC compliance aims to achieve "Good Cyber Hygiene." In this level of certification, the vendors will have to positively implement the final 45 controls of NIST 800-171 Rev1 with 13 new "Other" controls. If you store, process, or transmit Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI), you will have to achieve at least this level of certification.

 

·        System Boundaries Matter

Minimizing the number of systems that store, process, or transmit CUI data will help you reduce cyber attacks. This also lowers the costs of compliance.

 

·        There is no Silver Bullet

To meet the requirements of CMMC compliance, you need to integrate multiple solutions into it. To bring down the risk of potential cyber vulnerabilities, various monitoring and management solutions need to be incorporated with your CMMC. This includes compliant platforms, encrypted assets, data back-ups, and other solutions with the CMMC compliance components. The various CMMC components are:

Ø Domains: 17

Ø Capabilities: 43

Ø Practices: 171

Ø Processes: Maturity Levels; varying from levels 1 – 5

ØCertification Levels: 5

 

·        Policies matter

You need to vigilant about the integration of the required CMMC policies. Read about the various requirements for device compliance and better enforcement of policies.

·        Look At Your Cloud Platforms

CMMC compliance solution on the SaaS platform will help to save time and effort and reduce associated risk on the cloud platform.

 

·        Don’t Wait

If you have just started to process CMMC compliance policies, you need to plan for at least six months to get compliant with it. Write down the policies, deploy the solutions, and institute the required cultural changes before you get the compliance. In case you do not have the required information, you can ask a Compliance Solutions team to guide you.

To Conclude:

CMMC Compliance certification ensures the surety and safety of CUI across the DoD supply chain. Defense contractors can get better visibility into the cybersecurity controls and processes to adequately protect Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) on the DIB system and networks with CMMC. CMMC compliance is a progressive model that aims to cover the advanced levels of cybersecurity.