The Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification or CMMC was developed by the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment (OUSD(A&S)), along with DoD stakeholders to protect unclassified information that disseminates throughout the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) and the supply chain of the DoD. Current Challenges Organizations today face a constant, growing need for secure, authorized access to their most sensitive information. Further, current trends, including the rise of mobile workforces and the expanded use of service providers, increase the risk that sensitive information will fall into the wrong hands. Organizations supporting DoD must know exactly who is accessing and sharing confidential files, documents and reports, and they must balance availability with security.

Inadequate security controls for privileged and administrative identities create significant risks for an organization because these controls are often poorly implemented and maintained. For example, without the benefit of a privileged access management solution, it is difficult to sufficiently monitor usage of privileged identities. Additionally, administrative or application accounts can often be impossible to disable due to the high potential for disruption to business. Meanwhile, manual processes — used to manage and update these accounts — are costly and prone to error.