The Department of Defense (DoD)’s Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) is the newest iteration of the DoD’s effort to protect controlled unclassified information (CUI), the defense industrial base (DIB), and the DoD’s supply chain. Building on the NIST SP 800-171 control set, the CMMC cybersecurity approach is a tiered scoring system ranging from basic cyber hygiene to dynamic and adaptive cybersecurity programs. The CMMC framework comprises 17 domains, with each tier layering in more practices and processes for each domain. This infographic will take a high-level CMMC overview of the domains, define what CMMC certification takes, and show what to expect when working to meet your CMMC requirements.
CMMC Domain Name |
Domain Description |
| Access Control | This domain requires your organization to establish who has access to your systems and what their requirements are to operate effectively. As well who has remote access, internal system access, and the limitations of their roles in system. |
| Asset Management | This domain asks that you locate, identify, and log inventory of the assets to your organization. |
| Audit & Accountability | This domain requires that you have a process in place for tracking users that have access to your organization’s CUI and performing audits of those logs to ensure they are held accountable for their behavior. You will need to define the requirements of each audit, have a method to perform the audit, protect and secure the results of that audit and manage audit logs. |
| Awareness & Training | This domain requires that you have training programs in place for all personnel and conduct security awareness activities. |
| Configuration Management | This domain asks that you establish configuration baselines as a measure to judge the efficiency of your systems. This is necessary to conduct audits and accurately measure the posture of your systems. |
| Identification & Authentication | This domain ensures the proper roles within your organization have the correct level of access and can be authenticated for reporting and accountability purposes. |
| Incident Response | For this domain, your organization will need an Incident Response Plan. The ability to detect and report events, develop and implement response to a declared incident, perform post-incident reviews and test your response in an effort to measure your entity’s preparedness in the event of a cyber attack. |
| Maintenance | This domain requires you have a maintenance system in place to maintain and effectively operate your systems. |
| Media Protection | For this domain, your organization will need to prove it has its media identified and appropriately marked for ease of access. Additionally, it asks that you provide evidence of a media protection protocol, sanitation protocol, and transportation protection in place. |
| Personnel Security | Your personnel will have to have been properly screened and have background checks run. Also, you will need to provide evidence that your CUI is protected during personnel activity such as employee turnover or transfer. |
| Physical Protection | Your organization will need to provide evidence of the physical security surrounding your assets and prove that they are protected. |
| Recovery | This domain requires that you keep and log backups of media necessary to your organization, these need to be logged for the purpose of continuity among backups and mitigate lost data. |
| Risk Management | Risk Management is the process of identifying and evaluating the risk that affects your company using periodic risk assessments and vulnerability scanning. This includes your own organization’s risk as well as that of your vendors. |
| Security Assessment | For this domain, you will need a system security plan in place. Additionally, you will need to define and manage controls and perform code reviews for your organization. |
| Situational Awareness | You will need evidence of a threat monitoring system. This helps supplement other domains and keeps your organization secure in the event of a cyber incident. |
| System & Communication Protection | You will need to define the security requirements of each system and communication channel your organization uses to provide evidence your organization has control of communications at system boundaries. |
| System & Information integrity | System and information integrity require you to identify and manage flaws within your system, identify hazardous and malicious content in-system, implement email protections and monitor your network and system. |
See why leading DoD contractors are choosing CyberStrong to prepare for CMMC compliance:
