Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

Now that CMMC is a mandatory part of participating in the defense supply chain, a lot of businesses are starting to grapple with the requirements and what they mean for operations. One of the biggest roadblocks is the use of an MSP, or Managed Services Provider. MSPs are the backbone of many businesses that don’t have the resources to spin up entire architectures on their own. It’s a huge benefit and allows companies to exist when otherwise the investment to get started would be way too high.

What happens when there’s an unexpected interruption to your business? Certainly, it depends on the kind of interruption. The way your business handles something like a power outage can be quite different from how you handle a wildfire, which will be different from how you handle a cyberattack. The core principles are the same. You want to have ways to defend your business, to restore services, and to ensure continuity as much as possible.

With any security framework, be it ISO 27001, FedRAMP, or CMMC, the goal is not to secure “your business.” It’s to secure sensitive and controlled information that your business handles. This is a fundamentally important way of looking at your security. Why does this matter? It’s all about borders. Where do you draw the line between what you keep secure and what you don’t care about?

When a cloud services provider wants to work with the federal government, they have to pass a rigorous audit to make sure they’re capable of properly securing the controlled information they would handle in the process. Achieving that Authority to Operate is done through the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program and is the biggest barrier to federal contracts, and the bar is high. As many as 60% of CSPs attempting to pass their ATO audit will fail.

When you think about an IRS publication, you’re probably thinking about the complex forms you need to fill out, usually relating to taxes. That’s not all the IRS publishes, though, and one of the more important documents they maintain is called Publication 1075. When it comes to sensitive information for everyday Americans and private sector businesses, there’s very little more important and more sensitive than tax information.

Information security frameworks like CMMC are not just about enforcing security. They’re about enforcing accountability. That’s why a whole section of controls and rules that make up CMMC centers around incident response and reporting. You can’t just have security in place, but throw your hands up and do nothing if there’s an incident or breach. Nor can you sweep it under the rug and hope no one notices.

Across the ecosystem of federal contractors, a majority of deployments tend to be relatively standard. 80% of them will be FedRAMP impact level Moderate, for example, and most will have a standard set of considerations and concerns, such that a lot of security controls can be automated. It’s those outliers that make FedRAMP challenging.

We’ve talked a lot about the process a business goes through to achieve FedRAMP authorization and the ability to work with a government department or agency. What about the other side of the coin? What happens if you lose that authorization? Depending on how and why, the consequences can range from minimal to dire, so it’s important to know and be prepared.

Every cloud service provider that seeks an authorization to operate with the federal government using the FedRAMP framework has to undergo and pass an audit. Beyond passing the audit, the CSP needs to keep and maintain proof of not just their external audit, but also internal audits, continuous monitoring results, and more.

One thing is certain: every year, the cybersecurity threat environment will evolve. AI tools, advances in computing, the growth of high-powered data centers that can be weaponized, compromised IoT networks, and all of the traditional vectors grow and change. As such, the tools and frameworks we use to resist these attacks will also need to change. While in some years, the evolution of protection is slow and steady, some promise larger shakeups.