NIST 800-171 Compliance

Real IT Care has aligned with a state and federally funded organization to design and deliver cybersecurity services that enable SMBs to achieve compliance with Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) Clause 252.204-7012. This is a specific set of cybersecurity requirements set forth by the Department of Defense that pertains to the safeguarding of covered defense information and cyber incident reporting. This security criteria the DoD requires ALL prime and subcontractors to comply with NIST 800-171 in order to do business with the department.

Unfortunately, the complexity of the new regulations has meant that many contractors have experienced difficulties in becoming compliant, leaving them in danger of losing existing contracts and/or failing to win new ones. Real IT Care, along with the Pennsylvania Manufacturing Extension Program organization, has teamed up to offer technical assistance to these organizations.

NIST 800-171 Compliance Expertise and Assistance

Our NIST 800-171 compliance service includes a set of steps designed to help organizations achieve compliance quickly and with precision. Too often, organizations try to tackle this process themselves, only to realize too late they’re in over their heads after they’ve taken unnecessary steps and wasted time and money needlessly.

When you work with us to achieve NIST 800-171 compliance, we’ll assess where your organization is now, identify areas in need of attention, and create a customized plan to help you become compliant. While every plan is tailored to address your specific organization’s security challenges, here is an overview of what you’ll receive with NIST 800-171 compliance technical assistance:

1. Background and education on the NIST 800-171 requirements and its impact on your organization
2. An exhaustive Security Assessment that assesses your organization’s current compliance with regards to the 14 groups of security controls defined in NIST’s 800-171 110 security framework.
3. A comprehensive Gap Analysis that pinpoints the specific areas in which your organization is out of compliance
4. A Plan of Action report that’s created in partnership with your organization, which describes how and when your company will reach compliance with each security requirement.
5. A comprehensive System Security Plan document that contains all of the above information, which that will help you to prove NIST 800-171 compliance as well as regularly review and continually improve your organization’s security posture.
6. If internal or outsourced IT staff already exists, we’ll offer guidance to personnel on how to achieve compliance in a cost-effective manner. Real IT Care also has a host of IT security products that may fill critical gaps, such as:
   1. SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) server to collect and analyze hardware and software logs and provide the required reporting on these logs
   2. An employee training solution that tracks employee’s progress and tests them through email phishing tests.
   3. Expertise to craft the written policies that are required to satisfy NIST 800-171
   4. Penetration and Vulnerability scanning to identify known vulnerabilities on your network and network security plan, so they can be located and patched
7. If your company lacks the internal expertise to remediate security shortcomings, Real IT Care can implement the entire System Security Plan to bring your organization into NIST 800-171 compliance.

Once you’ve achieved full NIST 800-171 compliance, Real IT Care is available for any related cybersecurity concerns or questions in order to ensure compliance is maintained. To fulfill the regular review requirement set forth by NIST 800-171, Real IT Care is able to facilitate these reviews and/or act as an auditor to confirm your organization’s security posture.

Real IT Care is committed to supporting the SMBs that help to enable and facilitate the efforts of our nation’s Department of Defense. We have technical expertise to help you achieve compliance quickly and to our government’s exacting standards, so contact us today for professional assistance with NIST 800-171 compliance.