One of the biggest, most complicated projects in the defense industrial base isn’t a new weapons system or cloud computing environment. It’s the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC), which is set to upend how the Department of Defense does business with 300,000 contractors who provide everything from advanced aircraft to the shoelaces in soldiers’ boots.
The program is the Pentagon’s latest response to years of neglect that left the door open to hackers to steal critical defense information, and the second half of 2020 will be a crucial stretch for the new, 15-person volunteer board at the heart of the CMMC process.
The days where a contractor just needed to sign on the dotted line to self-certify cybersecurity compliance will soon be gone, provided the board can create an entire industry of cyber assessors from scratch.
