Protect CUI, meet DoD requirements, and stay eligible for award.
For a defense contractor, cybersecurity is not just good practice; it is written into the contract as a condition of eligibility, and staying ready is a standing job rather than a one-time project. IT Solutions Technology Partners helps organizations in the defense industrial base carry that load. We help you find out which CMMC level applies, measure where you stand against it, and close the gaps in a defensible order, so a solicitation never arrives faster than your readiness. Even with the certification timeline in flux, the underlying obligations to protect FCI and CUI have not changed, and neither has the value of being ready.
Addressing the Questions Defense Contractors Ask First.
Most organizations reach out after a prime asks
a question they cannot answer, or after a solicitation
lands with a clause they have not seen before.
We help defense contractors:
Determine the Right CMMC Level:
The level is set by the information a contract involves, not by company size. Federal Contract Information points to Level 1; Controlled Unclassified Information points to Level 2. ITS starts by reading the solicitation with you.
Scope CUI Correctly:
Scoping comes before assessment. ITS maps where regulated data enters, moves, and rests (email, file shares, engineering systems, backups, and admin systems), producing the defined assessment boundary everything else is measured against.
Get Ready Before the Bid, Not After:
Contracting officers check the Supplier Performance Risk System (SPRS) before award. ITS builds readiness plans around eligibility deadlines rather than a general improvement timeline.
Manage POA&Ms Against the Clock:
At Levels 2 and 3, a conditional status is available with a plan of action and milestones for a period not exceeding 180 days. ITS tracks remediation against that deadline. Level 1 offers no conditional status.
Produce Evidence Primes Will Accept:
Flow-down is real, and assurances do not satisfy it. Subcontractors submit their own affirmations and self-assessment results into SPRS. ITS helps organizations produce evidence that survives a prime’s independent verification.
Services Designed for Defense Contractors
ITS advises, facilitates, and validates CMMC readiness; the contractor owns and implements the controls and submits its own status. That includes a gap assessment against the requirements for your level, vCISO-led governance to sequence the work, policy and POA&M oversight, and the managed security services that operate many of the required controls.
Self-assessment preparation and SPRS submission support
Preparation for future C3PAO or DIBCAC review
Defense work makes cybersecurity a contractual obligation, not a best practice. We secure the systems that touch Federal Contract Information and Controlled Unclassified Information, and align controls to the frameworks CMMC is built on, so protection and eligibility move together.
Cloud services that handle CUI carry their own requirements, and the wrong environment can expand your assessment boundary. We plan cloud readiness, migration, and management across public, private, and hybrid environments with those obligations in mind, so the move supports compliance rather than complicating it.
Small and mid-sized defense suppliers often carry enterprise-grade obligations on lean teams. Our managed IT keeps the systems your operation runs on available and supported, with a responsive service desk and predictable pricing, while producing the operational evidence CMMC expects.
Defense contractors are adopting AI quickly, but in an environment where an employee pasting controlled information into a public AI tool is both a security incident and a compliance problem, success takes more than picking the right tools. The ITS AI Governance & Enablement Practice helps you adopt and manage AI securely across your organization while keeping control over risk, privacy, and compliance.
Compliance is a moving target, and reactive spending is expensive. As an ITS client, you get a designated Strategic Advisor and fractional CISO (vCISO) guidance to sequence remediation, manage risk, and align IT investments with both your growth and your eligibility for award.
Building a compliant enclave, migrating regulated data, or standing up new infrastructure calls for careful project work. Our Professional Services team plans and delivers these projects with a client-first process, so changes support your assessment boundary instead of widening it.
How Our CMMC and Managed IT Services Support Defense Contractors
Readiness before the assessment, governance after it.
CMMC Gap Assessment
A gap assessment measures your organization against the requirements that apply to its level and produces the evidence trail an assessor or a prime will ask for. ITS evaluates technical and administrative controls against NIST SP 800-171 for Level 2 or FAR 52.204-21 for Level 1, identifies missing documentation and unimplemented controls, and delivers a prioritized remediation plan with a readiness report, a compliance score, and support preparing a self-assessment submission to SPRS.
vCISO-Led Compliance Governance
Closing gaps requires someone accountable for sequencing the work. A designated vCISO from ITS provides that structure: security leadership, a maturity backlog that consolidates findings into one prioritized view, a roadmap tied to the applicable framework, quarterly executive strategy reviews, and executive reporting that keeps progress visible between assessments. The same team supports responses to security questionnaires from primes, auditors, and insurers.
Policy Guidance and POA&M Oversight
Documentation is where most assessments stall. ITS runs framework-aligned workshops covering the System Security Plan, Incident Response, Access Control, and related policies, reviews existing documentation against what is required, and supplies templates, examples, and prioritized edits. The contractor authors and approves the final content. ITS tracks POA&M items against their deadlines and prepares organizations for a future C3PAO or DIBCAC review.
Security Controls Delivered as Managed Services
Many CMMC requirements describe operational practices rather than documents. ITS delivers these as ongoing managed services, so each control is running and producing evidence rather than described in a policy nobody operates: multi-factor authentication, audit log collection and retention through a managed SIEM, continuous vulnerability management, infrastructure and endpoint patch management, managed endpoint detection and response, and security awareness training with completion and simulation reporting.
A Clear Division of Responsibility
ITS advises, facilitates, and validates alignment. The contractor owns and implements the technical and policy controls and submits its own status. That division matters, because CMMC holds the contractor accountable regardless of who helped. ITS is not a C3PAO and does not certify its own clients, which no advisory firm can do. What ITS provides is the readiness work before an assessment and the governance that sustains compliance after one.
Defense Contractor Credentials & Expertise
How ITS is qualified, and what ITS is not.
Not a C3PAO (By Design)
Certification assessments are performed by accredited third-party assessment organizations, and no advisory firm can certify its own clients. ITS provides the readiness work that happens before an assessment and the governance that sustains compliance afterward.
Framework-Based Assessment Practice
ITS assessments measure against published requirement sets rather than internal checklists: NIST SP 800-171, FAR 52.204-21, and the CIS Critical Security Controls.
SOC 2 Type II Compliance
ITS maintains SOC 2 Type II compliance, an audited assessment of how its own security, availability, and confidentiality controls operate over time. Contractors evaluating an external service provider generally ask for this.
SSAE 18 Type II Compliance
ITS is SSAE 18 Type II compliant, the attestation standard a contractor’s auditors use when reviewing a service provider’s controls.
Readiness Takes Months. Solicitations Do Not Wait.
The security obligations behind CMMC are still in force, and the certification requirement can return. The organizations that stay ready are the ones still eligible when a contract appears. Talk to our team about where you stand today.
A: No, and no advisory firm can. Level 2 certification assessments are performed by accredited third-party assessment organizations (C3PAOs), and Level 3 assessments are performed by the Defense Contract Management Agency’s DIBCAC. ITS provides gap assessments, remediation guidance, documentation support, vCISO-led governance, and the managed security services that operate many of the required controls.
A: Phase 1 self-assessment requirements (Level 1 self and Level 2 self) have been in effect since November 10, 2025 and remain in force. In July 2026, the Department suspended the transition to Phase 2 (Level 2 third-party certification), which had been scheduled for November 10, 2026, pending a program review, and a September 2026 class deviation made that suspension binding on contracting officers. The underlying obligations under DFARS 252.204-7012 and NIST SP 800-171 remain in effect. CMMC is paused in part, not canceled, so readiness still matters. [Flag: confirm the latest status before publishing; the program is under active review.]
A: At Levels 2 and 3, a conditional status is available with a POA&M in place, and it runs for a period not exceeding 180 days from the conditional status date. Level 1 does not offer a conditional status. A POA&M sets a deadline rather than removing one, and ITS tracks remediation against that clock.
A: Yes, where they handle FCI or CUI, and ITS supports suppliers at that tier as well as primes. Requirements flow down, and subcontractors submit their own affirmations and self-assessment results into SPRS. Prime contractors cannot view a subcontractor’s CMMC information directly, which is why primes send their own verification requests
A: It can. External service providers that handle or can affect regulated data fall inside the assessment boundary, and cloud services handling CUI carry their own requirements. This is a scoping question to settle early rather than discover during an assessment, and ITS works through it as part of the gap assessment.
Contact us via the form below or call at 866.742.5487. Whether you need network management, secure cloud hosting, or custom application development, our team is here to help.
