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CMMC

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CMMC

Overview

CMMC is the new Cyber Security certification that is taking the Department of Defense (DoD) by storm. The new mandate requires all Federal contractors, prime and subcontractors, to be validated by a CMMC Accreditation Board (AB) approved Certified Third-Party Assessment Organization (C3PAO). The days of being “self-certified” to NIST 800-171 standards are a thing of the past, now the 300,000+ organizations registered to bid on RFP’s for the DoD must become CMMC compliant. There are 5 levels of CMMC certification, the scope of work your organization normally develops proposals for determines the level of compliance you need.

The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and the CMMC AB have stated that the mandate to become compliant will not change even with the COVID-19 pandemic, so it is important that organizations look to implement immediately. If Defense Contractors wait until the Summer of 2020 to begin implementing changes they will be putting their enterprise at risk for missing out on upcoming opportunities at the beginning of the 2021 fiscal year. A full CMMC compliance maturity and certification process can take from 6-12 months depending on the level of certification and the current state of the organization’s cyber security compliance if done alone.

Why CSS?

CSS is the ultimate partner for your CMMC preparation.

As your partner, we are by your side throughout the entire process. From initial scan to final audit certification, CSS is here to help. Most of our competitors provide an initial scan with recommendations on fix actions and stop there, while we come in as a trusted agent and fix the problems with you. Their approach causes you to involve multiple cyber security analysts to provide round-the-clock monitoring and protection, while forcing you to perform fix actions by yourself. Our proprietary solution was developed with these requirements in mind, and the expert analysts in our Security Operations Center ensure that your network has the 24/7/365 protection and maintenance as required by law. Our market analysis shows that we are one of the most complete and affordable solutions to obtain CMMC certification. Schedule your complimentary network vulnerability scan today to get started!

The DoD is not "BLUFfing".....

so here's the Bottom Line Up Front

With Government agencies and top enterprises spending the necessary funds on their cybersecurity programs and employee training, hackers have shifted their focus to Small and Medium businesses that have less stringent network security as their prime targets. The Department of Defense (DoD) has issued the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) as an effort to mandate more mature cybersecurity practices, and to apply mandatory audits to ensure companies have successfully implemented requirements. CMMC builds upon DFARS and has five levels of maturity from Basic to Advanced Cyber Hygiene. CMMC certification is the future for the DoD supply chain and will be a requirement in future Request for Proposals (RFPs) for organizations that wish to conduct business with the DoD.

Tell me more about

Levels 1-5

Now that we know that the DoD is mandating CMMC and there are 5 Levels, lets dig in! CMMC incorporates pre-existing requirements such as NIST SP 800-171. 48 CFR 52.204-21, DFARS clause 252.204-7012, and various other requirements into a single set of unified best practices for cybersecurity. These requirements are laid out across 17 different domains, range from certification levels of 1-5, and total 171 cybersecurity best practices.

The necessary level of certification depends on the degree of requirements for the contracts your organization seeks. For example Level 1 is more about being able to show that your organization can perform specified practices and may not rely on documentation, as process maturity is not assessed for Level 1. However, higher levels require that proper processes and procedures are in place. Levels 4-5 take it a step further and require that your organization can protect your Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) from Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs).

Now that I understand the 5 Levels...

tell me more about the controls.

As mentioned previously there are 5 different levels of CMMC. from Basic to Advanced Cyber Hygiene, but many people ask questions surrounding the seventeen different Capability Domains. What are they? How do I satisfy each area? Do I really have to go through every domain and requirement for certification?
Each domain has separate requirements that must be met before you can achieve compliance for your desired level of certification. It is important to note that not every company that approaches you offers a solution that meets the full intent of all seventeen controls... spoiler alert: we do! Their approach forces you to manage multiple different vendors to piecemeal a solution to meet CMMC compliance.
Here is a look at the seventeen required controls that we satisfy for our customers:

CSS Turn-Key

Approach

With Government agencies and top enterprises spending the necessary funds on their cybersecurity programs and employee training, hackers have shifted their focus to Small and Medium businesses that have less stringent network security as their prime targets. The Department of Defense (DoD) has issued the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) as an effort to mandate more mature cybersecurity practices, and to apply mandatory audits to ensure companies have successfully implemented requirements.
CMMC builds upon DFARS and has five levels of maturity from Basic to Advanced Cyber Hygiene. CMMC certification is the future for the DoD supply chain and will be a requirement in future Request for Proposals (RFPs) for organizations that wish to conduct business with the DoD.

CTC Security Appliance

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Personalized Onboarding

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Policies and Procedures

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24/7 Security Monitoring

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24/7 Help Desk Operations

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CMMC Required Training Program

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Personalized Customer Portal

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Live Compliance Dashboard

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FEDRAMP Approved Cloud

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Schedule a call today!

CTC Security Appliance

 

Our Cyber Threat Compliance (CTC) platform brings all the compliant security tools to the fight that your organization needs. The primary difference between CSS and our competition is that we fold all the security tools into one proprietary, patented device without charging you the heavy upfront costs of acquiring and implementing new technology. The CTC is a vital piece of our CMMC package because it baselines the technology that your organization uses to protect your data and meet compliance. 

 

Personalized Onboarding

At CSS we offer turnkey CMMC compliance within a 90 day timeframe. It is important that during the process we are aligned with several members of your team to ensure a smooth transition. Our Client Onboarding Coordinator will be with you throughout the entire process. From the initial introduction during your Kick-off meeting, to the Quarterly Review you will have a Client Onboarding Coordinator and our Engineering team to help you along the way. We want the process to remain easy and transparent for your organization, so we ensure that our team stands by your side for each milestone between you and compliance. During the Kick-off meeting our team will give you a clear view of the road ahead and cater to your staff to ensure everyone is prepare for the CMMC culture change. 

Policies and Procedures

 

At CSS when we say turn-key compliance, we mean turn-key compliance. It is easy to become overwhelmed when it comes to developing Policies and Procedures that satisfy IT and cybersecurity regulations within your industry. After all, if you are not in the business of IT or cybersecurity many of the requirements can look like they are written in a foreign language. Don’t worry, we are here to help! We use the data from your Compliance Assessment and industry requirements to generate appropriate Policies and Procedures that address the controls dictated within your industry. We develop the clear, consistent Policies and Procedures needed to reinforce your organization’s security and compliance programs. We continue to monitor industry requirements and update your Policies and Procedures as they change, allowing you to focus on your business. Our team of Policy and Procedure experts develop a package of required policies and procedures based on CMMC that fit the way your organization does business. 

 

24/7 Security Monitoring

At CSS we offer flexible Security Operations Center (SOC) options for our partners. Developing your own SOC in house can be difficult and expensive task, not to mention staffing with a team of talented security experts 24/7. Therefore, at CSS we have opened our SOC to you! When you partner with CSS for your CMMC compliance needs we offer our SOC as a part of the package. Your network will be monitored for potential threats 24/7/365 to ensure that we keep your data safe. Protect your network and all of your devices with advanced end-to-end detection. Our expert Cybersecurity Analyst use real-time cyber threat intelligence to identify anomalies in your network and secure vital business data.

24/7 Help Desk Operations

We believe that your team should not have to wait when it comes to getting the IT support you deserve. That is why we offer our 24x7 Helpdesk to our Complete Compliance solution subscribers. Our experienced team not only responds to customer reported issues, but we often fix issues before your team even notices. As your security provider we monitor your network 24/7 and proactively look to close tickets often before they occur. Our proactive approach to security enables us to excel beyond our competitors' standard I.T. and remote managed solutions that include reactive and minimally proactive helpdesk. Our 24/7 Help Desk services are essential components of efficient business operations and processing of end-user service requests.

CMMC Required Training Program

Your company can spend its entire IT and cybersecurity budget on cutting edge technology to protect your network, just to be breached due to an untrained staff member. You are only as strong as your weakest link, so let’s make sure your staff are properly prepared to withstand cyber threats. Security Training handles the human aspect of insecurity in an organization. We ensure that each employee is educated and prepared to avoid scams and attacks and properly report and handle incidents. Since email is the most attacked surface, we include custom email phishing campaigns each quarter for our customers. This is used to gauge your staff’s adherence to policy and provide a realistic opportunity for employees to train. Annual training is required for compliance and CSS provides it. Our team provides the following training as a part of our CMMC package:

Personalized Customer Portal

 

Our approach to CMMC compliance is simple, we ensure that your organization should have access to data and communications within a secure and compliant environment regardless where your business travels may take you. Our CTC and on-premises solutions ensure that your team is working within secure and compliant boundaries, but what happens when you leave the office? Our Customer Portal was designed with all of life’s unexpected travels in mind. From our Customer Portal you can access the following in a secure and compliant environment:

Since the Customer Portal is a CSS developed product, we are also able to customize the page to better meet your business’ needs. We can add Timekeeping, Human Resource Benefits, and other corporate site buttons to ensure your employees have all their needs in one unique location. Our Customer Portal is hosted in a secure FEDRAMP approved cloud environment to ensure your information is always safe. 

 

Live Compliance Dashboard

 

While compliance is something that we should all take seriously, nobody jumps for joy to implement and track the progress. With our Compliance Dashboard you can not only understand where you are today, you can easily identify your non-compliance areas and develop a plan to mitigate those risks. Our Dashboard shows your organization your exact percentage of CMMC compliance for each of the 17 domain areas, as well as a combined percentage of overall CMMC compliance. Our Compliance Dashboard provides executive reporting, project management, and engineering task management to keep your compliance up-to-date easily while staying on budget. Executives can quickly understand short falls and compliance budget. Project managers can quickly address compliance issues and assign engineers. We are able to log evidence for auditors to make the audit trail clean and easy to conduct. 

 

FEDRAMP Approved Cloud

 

The secure cloud environment service provides a compliant, scalable, and secure infrastructure capability enabling and supporting platforms or software required for their business or mission success. We implement over 400 High Baseline security controls within the boundary to support Federal cloud services requirements for protecting CUI and PII per agency application level ATO security requirements and is currently providing service to multiple Government Agencies (including DoD and TSA) and supporting vendor customers. The environment was intentionally designed to meet and exceed the FedRAMP High Impact Baseline and DoD Cloud Computing Security Requirements Guide security, privacy and control, and compliance requirements.