The Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) is a unified standard for implementing cybersecurity across the defense industrial base (DIB), which includes over 300,000 companies in the supply chain. The CMMC is the DoD’s response to significant compromises of sensitive defense information located on contractors’ information systems.

The US Department of Defense (DoD) released the CMMC on January 31, 2020. It was drafted with significant input from University Affiliated Research Centers, Federally Funded Research and Development Centers, and industry.

The CMMC establishes five certification levels that reflect the maturity and reliability of a company’s cybersecurity infrastructure to safeguard sensitive government information on contractors’ information systems. The five levels are tiered and build upon each other’s technical requirements. Each level requires compliance with the lower-level requirements and institutionalization of additional processes to implement specific cybersecurity-based practices.