In the past few years, we have witnessed an incredible surge in cybercrime and cyber-attacks targeted towards both individuals and businesses. Organizations of all sizes have been victims of a wide variety of attacks.
During the pandemic, as more businesses moved online and consumers also only had the internet to turn to, it was an even more fruitful environment for attackers. Even as we have moved on from the pandemic, internet activity is still surging, our reliance on digital systems is higher than ever, and cybercriminals are more active than ever.
Amidst all these changes, government-run organizations and businesses that are associated with the government have also felt the impact of digital criminal activity. While there have been a number of data reforms and data management solutions created in the past, they have only acted as a band-aid. These data breaches have been especially harmful to the Department of Defense (DoD) and organizations that collaborate with this wing.
The CMMC framework has been rolled out to counter this problem and manage data security at the local level. However, while many organizations are still figuring out how they can get qualified for a CMMC rating and which level they should work towards, one of the biggest limiting factors was the lack of CMMC Third-Party Assessor Organizations (C3PAO) which are going to be responsible for qualifying candidates. The DoD is not going to personally go through the countless contractors, businesses, and various organizations that collaborate with the DOD and will rely on these C3PAO's to independently evaluate each applicant and qualify them if they meet the standards.
However, many businesses were reluctant and even skeptical of this new program because until recently there was no certified C3PAO to qualify candidates, which made them slow to adopt the new framework.
Though, on the 9th of June 2021, the Defense Departments Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program made public that a company has officially qualified as an independent assessor being the first official C3PAO. This successful candidate was RedSpin. Moreover, RedSpin was also successfully achieved the Level 3 CMMC qualification after it completed the assessment conducted by the Defense Industrial Base Cybersecurity Assessment Center.
This is definitely a very big step for everyone behind the CMMC program and also for the organizations that need to work towards restructuring themselves in accordance with CMMC requirements. With a certified C3PAO company in the marketplace, we can be sure that CMMC is making strong progress and is well on its way to becoming a major change in the cybersecurity environment.
However, the DOD reports that this is not the only company and there are a number of C3PAO applicants in the pipeline awaiting approval. In fact, there are over 150 companies in the pipeline that are looking to become independent assessors in the near future. The lack of C3PAOs was also a major bottleneck in the past, as even if companies did achieve the requirements mentioned in the CMMC framework it was difficult for them to actually get certified. With over 150 companies getting ready to become assessors, the thousands of organizations that depend on C3PAO approvals will definitely see this as a promising change.
Moreover, this change solidifies the government's claim to better secure the DOD and all associated organizations and it's a move that will definitely have DOD associate organizations taking CMMC more seriously. While it will still take some time for CMMC to be fully rolled out and for it to reach everyone, the fact that the groundwork is coming into place makes this possibility a lot more realistic.
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