The Importance of Cybersecurity for Small Businesses
Preventing loss of Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) within the DIB is critical to maintaining national security.
As small businesses drive innovation and support the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) missions with cutting-edge technologies and solutions, it is vital to protect our nation's sensitive data and networks. The key to protecting our national defense is getting an early start embracing common cybersecurity and data protection goals by working together to create layered cyber defenses for the DIB small businesses.
Project Spectrum
Project Spectrum provides free valuable resources for the latest in cyber-defense and risk management. These resources allow organizations to determine their vulnerabilities, to educate their workforce, and to communicate with cybersecurity experts and industry specialists.
If you are handling Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) or Federal Contract Information (FCI) on your network or information systems, there are compliance standards you are required to meet. Project Spectrum offers Cyber Readiness Checks that will help you determine your current level of security based on NIST 800-171, CMMC Level 1 and/or CMMC Level 2 requirements. These readiness checks serve as a great first step in your cybersecurity journey.
Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification Requirement (CMMC) 2.0
To safeguard sensitive national security information, the Department of Defense (DoD) launched CMMC 2.0, a comprehensive framework to protect the defense industrial base’s (DIB) sensitive unclassified information from frequent and increasingly complex cyberattacks. With its streamlined requirements, CMMC 2.0:
Simplifies compliance by allowing self-assessment for some requirements
Applies priorities for protecting DoD information
Reinforces cooperation between the DoD and industry in addressing evolving cyber threats
Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and DFARS
Existing regulation in the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) and associated clauses requires contractor compliance with specific cybersecurity control standards.
Small Business contracts contain many FARS and DFARS, you must study them at length. These are not all of them, but these are some key security requirements.