Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) is an important step in making your company eligible to serve as a contractor in the defense industry. Required by the U.S. Department of Defense, CMMC certification ensures that registered contractors have the necessary cybersecurity frameworks in place to safeguard sensitive data from cyber threats.
In order to acquire CMMC certification, contractors often have to work with a Registered Practitioner Organization (RPO). Below, will explain what an RPO is, what they do, and why you need one.
What Is an RPO?
A Registered Practitioner Organization (RPO) is a vetted, Cyber AB-authorized company that offers pre-assessment consulting for contractors undergoing the process of CMMC certification. An RPO serves as a crucial adviser and analyst for defense contractors, helping them achieve the necessary framework and ecosystem for CMMC compliance. This is much like how other compliance agencies assist companies in different industries, helping them achieve metrics such as ISO 37001 certification.
In the broader context of CMMC certification, an RPO is distinct from a C3PAO (Certified Third-Party Assessor Organization). While RPOs assist companies with pre-assessment tasks, C3PAOs are companies that conduct final, official audits for CMMC certification. An RPO primarily serves as an advisor and guide helping your contracting company meet all requirements necessary to pass a C3PAO audit and achieve CMMC compliance.
What Do CMMC RPOs Do?
CMMC RPOs perform a number of vital functions, including conducting gap assessments, building compliance roadmaps, implementing systems and policies, and providing personnel guidance.
Gap Assessments
An RPO’s primary function is to evaluate your current cybersecurity posture. This means that they will take a deep dive into your security ecosystem, possibly performing actions such as penetration testing and gap assessments, to see whether it matches CMMC standards. If any gaps or deficiencies are found, your RPO will make note of them, keeping track of the areas where you need to improve to meet CMMC certification requirements. This is a key first step in the process of getting ready for your CMMC assessment, and eventually leads to your RPO helping you make strategic changes to your security posture.
Compliance Roadmaps
After analyzing your systems and determining where you fall short of CMMC compliance, your RPO will move on to building a comprehensive compliance roadmap. This is a detailed plan of action that will lay out exactly what your company needs to do to make itself compliant with CMMC guidelines. Your RPO will translate the complex federal requirements for CMMC certification into an actionable plan with various steps that you can follow to bulk up and enhance your security posture. Once this is done, you’ll have a path forward and can begin the most important part of the process, which is actually making the changes to your system required for CMMC certification.
Policy and System Implementation
Your RPO will help you implement systems and policies to effectively bring your company into compliance with CMMC regulations. This may involve tasks such as writing up Systems Security Plans (SSPs), which are foundational, living documents that outline your company’s policies for maintaining cybersecurity compliance. Once your SSP is complete, your RPO will help you actually implement the systems and controls needed to keep critical data secure, giving you full technical control and a guideline for keeping your security posture intact against various online threats like cyberattacks, phishing schemes, and more.
Personnel Guidance
Finally, your RPO will provide you with expert personnel guidance at every stage of the CMMC certification process. RPOs are specialists in the CMMC framework and NIST SP 800-171, the cybersecurity guidelines developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). This expertise will ensure that your CMMC certification process follows the strictest, most up-to-date guidelines and regulations, avoiding the possibility of any errors or mistakes when it’s finally time for your final C3PAO audit.
Why Do You Need an RPO?
RPOs are a necessary part of CMMC certification because the process of achieving compliance is necessarily complex and sophisticated. Much like other international guidelines, such as ISO 9001, CMMC certification requires multiple levels of exponentially-increasing compliance, as work in the defense sector necessarily involves highly-sensitive data. Without effective guidance, a contractor that attempts to earn CMMC certification can face expensive delays, failed audits, and even lost contracts.
Companies seeking CMMC certification need RPOs for some of the following reasons:
- Expert Guidance: RPOs know what C3PAO assessors are looking for and can easily close gaps between your IT environment and federal regulations.
- Third-Party Assistance: The DoD requires that companies do not perform internal assessments, which are prone to bias and misinformation. An RPO is a third-party entity that will be honest about your needs and can spare your IT team from accusations of being intransparent.
- Guaranteed Success: Working with an RPO can increase your likelihood of passing a C3PAO audit. Because failing an audit can cause a lengthy wait time before retesting, a good RPO can ensure that you get things right the first time.
Final Thoughts
CMMC certification is a necessary step towards setting your company up for success as a defense industry contractor. Much like other frameworks, such as Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC), or SOC audits, CMMC certification ensures that companies in a particular industry (in this case, defense) meet the highest possible standards for security. This keeps vital information from falling into the wrong hands, which can have catastrophic outcomes.
If you need to establish CMMC compliance at your own company, consulting a certified RPO is the best way to navigate the process smoothly. RPOs will help bolster your cybersecurity posture and put you in a perfect position to pass your C3PAO audit with flying colors. Once you do, you can get down to the business of bidding for and acquiring defense contracts, knowing that your security systems are completely up to snuff and can protect sensitive data!
Author Bio:
Nazy Fouladirad is President and COO of Tevora, a global leading cybersecurity consultancy. She has dedicated her career to creating a more secure business and online environment for organizations across the country and world. She is passionate about serving her community and acts as a board member for a local nonprofit organization.
