C3PAO Certification Is Coming. Are You Ready?
By 2025, cybercrime is estimated to cause global losses of up to $10.5 trillion annually, affecting various industries such as federal contracting and national defense.
The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) created the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) in 2020 to ensure the security of its supply chain. This certification will be fully implemented by 2025 and become a contractual requirement for DoD awards.
Certified Third-Party Assessor Organization (C3PAO)
Starting on November 30, 2020, the Department of Defense (DoD) implemented a new requirement for its contractors (whether primary or subcontractor) to obtain certification from an independent Certified Third-Party Assessor Organization (C3PAO). This certification is necessary to ensure that the contractors are trustworthy in storing Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) and Federal Contract Information (FCI). The certification process involves five maturity levels, ranging from “basic” to “advanced,” and must be renewed every three years to maintain CMMC compliance.
Who Needs to Be Certified?
The new CMMC assessments affect over 350,000 U.S. Defense Industry Base (DIB) organizations, including approximately 74% of small businesses that are DoD contractors.
Get Help With CMMC
How can this impact businesses like yours beginning their CMMC compliance journey? First, it is essential to strengthen your defenses. Let us help you get ready for the certification process. We can work with your business to assess your risk with an organizational background check, implement a solid cybersecurity program to meet your needs and help you achieve compliance when it’s time for your C3PAO assessment. We can provide the following:
- Advisory services
- Gap assessment, analysis, and remediation
- Tool consolidation, minimization of the threat landscape, and reduction of the total cost of security operation
- Training
- Managed cybersecurity services
What are you waiting for? Start planning to set your business on the right track — toward compliance.
Are you prepared for the upcoming CMMC certification? It’s essential for contractors seeking a DoD contract award to pass this evaluation, which assesses technical security controls, documentation, policies, and processes to ensure security and resiliency. If you’re uncertain about your readiness for this level of scrutiny, let’s discuss it now to avoid any last-minute surprises.
Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/compliance/offerings/offering-cmmc