The ongoing rise of state-sponsored Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) has increased scrutiny of federal and state IT systems security systems. The latest version of CMMC includes a high-maturity level specifically designed to address these threats, which relies primarily on advanced security controls listed in NIST Special Publication 800-172.
As organizations move up the CMMC maturity model, they do so for one reason: to prepare themselves better to protect against Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs). These threats are a significant problem in the defense supply chain, and as such, CMMC leans heavily on NIST 800-171 and 800-172 to address them.
This article introduces how these documents, particularly Special Publication 800-172, address APTs.
The original CMMC (version 1.0) was based on several cybersecurity guidelines, most prominently NIST 800-171. With the announcement of CMMC version 2.0 in early November 2021, however, the alignment between the frameworks and the NIST document has changed a bit. Fortunately, this change seems to be for the better, or at least more intuitive, for assessors and contractors.
Here, we’ll discuss how the new CMMC 2.0 assessment levels align with NIST 800-171 and how this can help contractors more readily meet their security obligations once the new framework goes into effect.