With so little guidance on building Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) programs, consultants struggle to help their clients. Meanwhile, a standardized approach to achieving compliance has not been established yet, either. As a Registered Practitioner (RP) or Certified Assessor (CA), your clients rely on your experience, but your unique background might make it hard to figure out the right path to compliance.

Your Background Informs Your Approach

Your background drives your approach to CMMC implementation. For example, consultants with experience working in federal spaces or an agency will approach compliance differently than those who come from a consulting organization.

Agency or Previous Federal Work

If you’re a consultant with federal or agency experience, you’re likely policy-oriented, with a focus on documentation as well as artifacts. You’ve got the knowledge and experience with standards such as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), National Institute of Standards and Technology Risk Management Framework (NIST RMF), or Command Cyber Readiness Inspection (CCRI). However, CMMC might look and feel a little different to you than these.

Consulting Firm Background

If you’re coming from a firm or organization, your approach to compliance has a different perspective. You’re probably used to an experience similar to that of a part-time employee. Your strengths lie in organizing employees, and you’re used to having the support of an IT or compliance team working with you.

Your Client’s Technology Impacts Your Strategy. However, not every client will have matured technologically yet, and this is s precisely why CMMC exists; you’re likely going to be facing several challenges.

Lack of Security Tools

Your clients may not have implemented any security technology at this point, especially Level 1 organizations who only need to show that they practice basic cyber hygiene. They may be using only basic event logs that don’t have the sophistication more prominent security vendors provide.

Hardening systems such as these become essential in preventing hardware, software, and firmware vulnerabilities that lead to more considerable risks.

Lack of Compliance Tools

CMMC implementation might well be your client’s first genuine compliance initiative. This beginning stage means they most likely aren’t protected by Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) technology. Clients such as these might be working primarily with manual monitoring practices, like spreadsheet documentation. Documenting compliance becomes more difficult because they have a hard time keeping track of different document versions.

Your Client’s Staff Impacts The Technologies You Choose

Staffing limitations in smaller firms mean gaps in cybersecurity skills, making it challenging to run entire security teams.

Rapid Onboarding

These clients might be unable to hire a dedicated cybersecurity team. Training their existing staff rapidly and efficiently becomes a key component to their success. However, onboarding staff to new technology can quickly become overwhelming. A smaller organization’s workforce might be more proficient with help desk technology than technical configurations and network architecture.

Easy User Interface

The technology needs to have a simple and user-friendly interface. It should enable staff to maintain security compliance without being difficult to set up and use. Many security tools require technical expertise to successfully use the product, which creates a real challenge for some smaller organizations.

Now let us turn back to the budget issue. Smaller clients can’t find someone with the needed technical background at the right salary point. They also can’t afford the time and money necessary to train one of their existing employees. To help them overcome this challenge, you need to find them something that gets their current staff up and running with an easy-to-use solution, making it easy to learn.

SteelCloud: Enabling Certified Assessors and Registered Practitioners

SteelCloud’s patented technology is easy to use. This way, organizations can train their IT teams and start hardening their technology stack in under 4 hours. CAs and RPs need to help clients mature their security programs rapidly and efficiently. SteelCloud’s solution is a way to harden systems without needing to add a headcount with unique skills.

SteelCloud’s software solution, built with compliance in mind, provides an all-in-one solution that scans environments, remediates vulnerabilities, and documents activities.

For more information, download our whitepaper “A Consultant’s Guide for CMMC.”

Choose Your Own CMMC Adventure – A GUIDE FOR CMMC CONSULTANTS

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