Cybersecurity Maturity
Model Certification

What is Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification?

To enhance the protection of Federal Contract Information (FCI) and Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) within the supply chain, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is working with DoD stakeholders, university-affiliated research centers, federally funded centers and industry at large to develop the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC), a process that measures the ability of company within the defense industrial base (DIB) sector to protect FCI and CUI. CMMC also adds a certification element to verify implementation of cybersecurity requirements and certifications will need to be performed by accredited third parties such as Schneider Downs.

CMMC is designed to provide the DoD assurance that a DIB contractor can adequately protect CUI at a level commensurate with the risk and account for flow down to subcontractors in a multitier supply chain. The CMMC will be included in RFIs and RFPs in 2020 and will eventually be mandatory for all.

To learn more about the potential costs and how your organization can prepare for CMMC, download our Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) Guide. 

The CMMC Model Framework

The CMMC model framework categorizes cybersecurity best practices at the highest level by domains.

Each domain is further segmented by a set of capabilities and achievements to ensure that cybersecurity objectives are met within each domain. Companies will further validate compliance with the required capabilities by demonstrating adherence to practices and processes that have been mapped across five maturity levels (explained below). Within this context, practices will measure the technical activities required to achieve compliance with a given capability requirement, while processes will measure the maturity of a companyâs processes.

CMMC Levels

The CMMC model has five defined levels, each with a set of supporting practices and processes, from Level 1 that addresses basic cyber hygiene to proactive and advanced Levels 4 and 5. In parallel, processes range from being performed at Level 1, documented at Level 2 and optimized across the organization at Level 5. To meet a specific CMMC level, an organization must meet the practices and processes within that level and below. Levels are described as follows:

• Level 1 Requires an organization to demonstrate basic cyber hygiene. While practices are expected to be performed, process maturity is not addressed at CMMC Level 1, and therefore, a CMMC Level 1 organization may have limited or inconsistent cybersecurity maturity. At this level, organizations may be provided with FCI, which is information not intended for public release but provided by or generated for the government under a contract to develop or deliver a product or service to the government.
• Level 2 Requires an organization to demonstrate intermediate cyber hygiene. At this level, an organization is expected to establish and document standard operating procedures, policies and strategic plans to guide the implementation of their cybersecurity program. At Level 2, organizations may be provided with FCI.
• Level 3 Requires an organization to demonstrate good cyber hygiene and effective NIST SP 800-171 Rev 1 security requirements. For process maturity, a Level 3 organization is expected to adequately resource and review activities related to adherence to policy and procedures, and demonstrate management of practice implementation. Organizations that require access to CUI and/or generate CUI should achieve Level 3.
• Level 4 and 5 At Levels 4 and 5, an organization has a substantial and proactive cybersecurity program, with the capability to adapt their protection and sustainment activities to address the changing tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) in use by APTs. For process maturity, the organization is expected to review and document activities for effectiveness and inform high-level management of any issues, as well as ensure that process implementation has been generally optimized across the organization.

CMMC Domains

The CMMC model consists of 17 domains, the majority which originated from the FIPS 200 security-related areas and the NIST SP 800-171 control families. The domains are as follows:

• Access Control (AC)
• Asset Management (AM)
• Audit and Accountability (AA)
• Awareness and Training (AT)
• Configuration Management (CM)
• Identification and Authentication (IDA)
• Incident Response (IR)
• Maintenance (MA)
• Media Protection (MP)
• Personnel Security (PS)
• Physical Protection (PP)
• Recovery (RE)
• Risk Management (RM)
• Security Assessment (SAS)
• Situational Awareness (SA)
• System and Communications Protections (SCP)
• System and Information Integrity (SII)

CMMC Timeline and Cost

While draft versions of the CMMC are currently available for review, the final version of CMMC is not expected to be released until January 2020. CMMC is set to start appearing in RFIs in June 2020, and the expectation is that it will start appearing in RFPs in September 2020.

As it relates to price, the FAQ section of the CMMC webpage notes that, the cost of certification will be considered an allowable, reimbursable cost and will not be prohibitive. For contracts that require CMMC, you may be disqualified from participating if your organization is not certified. Given that, we expect future RFIs and RFPs will allow prime contractors subcontractors to work the cost of compliance into their bids.

CMMC Assessments

Schneider Downs has successfully completed the Certified Third-Party Assessor Organization (C3PAO) accreditation process and applied for the CMMC ML-3 assessment performed by the Defense Contract Management Agency’s (DCMA) Defense Industrial Base Cybersecurity Assessment Center (DIBCAC). Schneider Downs is a Candidate C3PAO and pending a successful CMMC ML-3 assessment, Schneider Downs will be authorized to provide certification assessments for the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) program.