The Pentagon will hold a public hearing in late April or early May for its new cybersecurity contracting standards, Ellen Lord, under secretary of defense for Acquisition and Sustainment with Department of Defense and 2020 Wash100 Award recipient, announced. The department will prepare to select third party auditors and implement the requirements in 10 pilot programs in spring 2020.
Concerning DoD’s Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) program, Lord said her top priority has been “to communicate, communicate and communicate again” with industry, associations and Congress so that companies can understand their responsibilities to meet the government’s new cybersecurity standards.
The CMMC program is designed to ensure that any business working for the government can demonstrate it can defend its computer networks against adversarial cyber attacks. The DoD’s final version of the CMMC in has been expected to start implementing it this fall to secure its supply chain. “It is no secret we are at cyber war everyday,” she noted.
DoD has planned to select third party vendors, creating CMMC-related training material, promulgating rulemaking and completing an agreement with the newly established CMMC accreditation body that will certify auditors, Lord explained.
The undersecretary also noted that DOD’s initial CMMC work has caught the attention of contracting officials in other countries, and that the department is working with Canada, Australia, Singapore, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Italy, Sweden, Poland and others, as well as the European cybersecurity agency.
“All of the countries or groups are asking whether or not they can adopt our CMMC for their use,” said Ellen Lord, “which is exciting.”
Potomac Officers Club will host its CMMC Forum 2020 on April 2. Click here to register for the event.
Katie Arrington, chief information security officer at the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and a 2020 Wash100 Award recipient, will serve as a keynote speaker at the CMMC Forum 2020. She will address the CMMC’s timeline, how the certification process could change and will provide a memorandum of understanding with a newly established CMMC accrediting body.
A full expert panel will include Ty Schieber, senior director of executive education and CMMC-AB chairman of the University of Virginia and Richard Naylor of the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) among other members of the federal sector and industry.
Register here to join Potomac Officers Club for its CMMC Forum 2020 on April 2nd to learn about the impact DoD’s CMMC will have on cybersecurity practices, supply chain security and other aspects of the federal market.
