March 19, 2020 -- The CMMC Academy , an initiative of Celerium, announced the availability of a CMMC 1.0 Reference Guide to help defense suppliers understand the U.S. Department of Defense cybersecurity compliance program. The online guide is available to members of the Academy.
Membership is free for contractors and subcontractors in the defense industry. The CMMC Academy provides CMMC information for all defense contractors and subcontractors – large and small. For example, one online video provides an introduction to CMMC for small to medium-sized contractors, while another video explores the differences between CMMC 1.0 and NIST 800-171, which is more appropriate for primes and larger contractors.
An issue facing defense contractors working to understand the CMMC 1.0 requirements is navigating the 338-page PDF provided by the Department of Defense. The Academy's Reference Guide is designed to make the requirements easier to explore. By using the Reference Guide, users can:
- Select the specific levels and domains to explore and see the practices available.
- Choose to see only the practices for a selected level or see the aggregated practices (organized by domain).
- View a summary of the practices in a given level, and then navigate to learn more about a specific practice.
In addition to learning about each practice in CMMC 1.0, the Reference Guide provides an optional research mechanism intended to give defense contractors the ability to provide feedback regarding which areas of CMMC may be difficult to understand. Each section within the Reference Guide contains a short online survey whereby users can express how understandable and useful a given practice is in getting prepared for a CMMC assessment. Respondents will indicate the CMMC level in their response in order to enable the Academy to analyze practice effectiveness by level of defense suppliers.
Knowledge about CMMC will continue to develop, especially as the CMMC Accreditation Body releases training information for CMMC assessors and third-party assessment organizations (C3PAOs) throughout this year. The CMMC Academy will continue to augment its Reference Guide and informational solutions as new material and insights about CMMC evolve. Beyond helping defense suppliers learning about CMMC through online videos and the Reference Guide, the Academy also is exploring the creation of a free CMMC planning tool for defense contractors.
