The unique challenges small businesses face in a world of cyberthreats.

 When it comes to headline-making cybersecurity incidents, most have one thing in common—large companies usually get all the press. However, small businesses are just as vulnerable, with 43% of all data breaches targeting small businesses. And of those businesses, 60% will close their doors within six months. These are some very sobering statistics.

The good news is that the vast majority of small business owners know that they are potential targets. The bad news is that paying for an IT team significant enough to combat these threats is out of reach for many—especially amid a cyberworkforce shortage. Most small business owners don’t know where to start when shoring up their cybersecurity. Either that or they feel they don’t have the time nor the staff to figure it out.

Understanding the complexities of DoD’s CMMC 2.0 with its streamlined requirements and compliance mandates can go far in helping you win government contracts and protect data. But you have your work cut out for you. Unless you have a trick up your sleeve, you’re stuck between a proverbial rock and a hard place.

Small businesses face unique challenges with CMMC compliance.

It’s not like CMMC compliance is a breeze. It’s a challenge for contractors of all sizes—detecting and remediating issues, being assessed, performing continual diagnostics and mitigation, and documenting your efforts for good cyber hygiene. Even large organizations feel like they are losing control. But it is even more complicated when you don’t already have a level of compliance to build upon or when you don’t have the resources to establish a secure baseline. The extra challenges CMMC presents to small businesses include:

• Determining the level of complexity compliance requires. CMMC features multiple levels of compliance, with the number of requirements growing rapidly as the level increases. For example, Level 1 compliance mandates 17 security controls, but Level 2—which most DoD contractors will be expected to achieve—has 110 required controls. The Level you need to harden to is determined by how you work with the government and the amount of controlled unclassified information (CUI) you handle.
• Having confidence in your vendors. CMMC is meant to secure the entire supply chain of the DIB, meaning contractors are responsible for ensuring their subcontractors and suppliers are also compliant as well. Small businesses often lack full visibility into their supply chains and will likely struggle with ensuring full CMMC compliance on this point.
• Having sufficient talent and resources to get the job done. Many small businesses have small or non-existent dedicated IT teams—nor do they have the resources to hire these in-demand professionals—making it difficult for them to achieve, demonstrate, and maintain compliance with the new CMMC standards.

There’s a checklist to help you focus your efforts.

Tony Sager, Sr. Vice President and Chief Evangelist for the Center for Internet Security (CIS), has an interesting take on the issue. “Why can’t we keep up? For me, the “fog of more” is a way to convey it’s not the lack of resources. It’s that there’s too much. So, people become paralyzed. They’re overwhelmed not only by the technical problems and the changes in the business—the way it uses technologies and the demands of the customers—but the emergence of new technology, [and] the bad guys are changing all the time. So, the challenge is sorting all that out.”

CIS is helping businesses focus their efforts by providing standards-based benchmarks and controls that result in a secure baseline for your enterprise. CIS benchmarks are like the security technical information guides (STIGs) used throughout the DoD and as criteria for use in the DIB. These inventories and checklists are based on top cybersecurity experts’ collective wisdom and help organizations create a secure baseline for their enterprise. Your prime should also be able to help you understand which controls are relevant.

Automation is becoming a requisite answer.

Business expansion and success inevitably require the right talent. But most businesses are discovering that they can’t access the talent they need because of the growing cyberworkforce shortage. To make matters worse, when supply is short, salaries rise.

Small businesses need the right technologies in place to offer efficient and productive work throughout the organization. And, to help overcome labor shortages, they should prioritize employees’ skillsets and allow them to flourish. Automation can help you use human skills effectively by letting the bots do what bots do best—like the rote processes of completing a CIS checklist. In addition , one person can make your network safer with automation if you put processes and procedures in place and choose the right automated software.

A word about agents, however. While there are many tools to collect a system’s configurations, you’ll find that many tools are agent-based, meaning they rely on agents deployed on endpoints to collect the data. If you are on-premise, you must go through the pain of deploying agents on systems. Additionally, agent-based solutions will do nothing for systems where you can’t deploy agents, such as in medical devices, switches, routers, firewalls, etc. Even popular vulnerability scanners like Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP) are unreliable because free tools often tend to run a risk of a sudden end of life. So, to monitor your systems reliably and cover all your devices, you’ll need an agentless approach, such as automation.

“When the winds of change blow, some people build walls, and others build windmills.” Unknown, An ancient Chinese proverb

Create a small-business strategy using the tools the big guys use.

If a breach hits your small business, it may not make headlines. But it will damage your reputation if you don’t establish the proper procedures.. And it’s more likely than not to shutter your organization.

William Candrick, research director in the Gartner IT practice, says hiring and retaining professionals “remains a top challenge. The global demand for cybersecurity skills far exceeds the current supply of traditionally qualified individuals.” NIST reports that there are over 700,000 jobs in cybersecurity currently unfilled.

Meanwhile, breaches are increasingly prominent, and bigger, more well-funded companies are struggling to attract and retain enough cybersecurity talent in every sector nationwide. The pandemic magnified this workforce issue and caused even more concern over national security and economic welfare in its wake. Having the right automation tool can save 90% of the time required for system hardening demanded by a risk management framework (RMF.)

SteelCloud’s ConfigOS has been proven in large and small organizations to reduce the time it takes to harden a system to government standards by 90% and remove 70% of the costs associated with compliance. It’s what most system integrators and DoD agencies use. And it installs in 2 minutes and it takes two hours to train even those employees with less expertise. Schedule a free demo today and give your small business the security it needs to succeed.