Ensuring CMMC Compliance Through Comprehensive Risk Assessment

The Problem

CMMC compliance requirements are exceedingly complex and extensive, spanning three maturity levels. The aerospace company sought Level 2 compliance, requiring alignment with NIST SP 800-171 across 110 security controls to demonstrate its commitment to cyber resilience and maintain business relationships with government customers. Although our client had already completed a self-assessment, it also required third-party validation of its cybersecurity posture across its distributed cloud infrastructure to reach CMMC compliance.

The BlueAlly Solution

We began by interviewing and collaborating with key stakeholders to understand the company’s existing cloud infrastructure and compliance needs. We then documented system boundaries and information flows across our client’s Microsoft 365 business applications and conducted a comprehensive evaluation of its existing security controls. This evaluation assessed the aerospace company’s current state of CMMC compliance and provided recommendations through thorough documentation, including a System Security Plan (SSP) and Plan of Action and Milestones (POA&M).

These documents evaluated existing defenses and provided an actionable plan for achieving CMMC compliance, including remediation strategies and guidance on strengthening its security controls. We also conducted a comparative analysis of Microsoft Purview, Sophos, and other solutions to evaluate their data classification and endpoint protection capabilities. Additionally, we implemented and configured a Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) platform to centralize and manage CMMC documentation, evidence, and compliance status tracking.

The Results

We delivered this project on budget within 3 months, providing the aerospace company with a precise picture of its current CMMC compliance status and recommendations for achieving Level 2 compliance. This assessment empowered our client with a timeline and resource requirement estimates for implementing additional security controls.

Through this collaboration, the aerospace company reached a thorough understanding of its existing cybersecurity posture via comprehensive documentation and secured an actionable strategy for integrating future cloud security measures. These benefits enabled our client to enhance its defenses, demonstrate cyber resilience, and achieve CMMC compliance, thereby maintaining and strengthening its relationships with existing and prospective customers.