You got the email from your prime contractor. They need your CMMC assessment completed in 90 days or the contract doesn’t renew.
Sound familiar? You’re not alone. Thousands of small and mid-sized manufacturers across the U.S. are staring at the same timeline — and most of them don’t know where to start.
What CMMC actually is (plain English)
CMMC stands for Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification. It’s the Department of Defense’s way of saying: “If you handle Controlled Unclassified Information, you need to prove your security posture — not just tell us about it.”
There are three levels:
- Level 1 — Foundational. 17 practices. Annual self-assessment.
- Level 2 — Advanced. 110 practices. Triennial third-party assessment (most common for primes).
- Level 3 — Expert. 110+ practices. Government-led assessment.
Most defense-contracted manufacturers need Level 2. And that’s where the friction starts.
The gap most manufacturers have
You probably have antivirus. A firewall. Maybe someone who “does IT.” That’s not nothing — but it’s also not 110 practices.
What’s usually missing:
- Formal security policies (not just what Sarah knows because Sarah’s been here 15 years)
- Incident response plans that have actually been tested
- Logging and monitoring that’s more than “check it if something goes wrong”
- Access control that follows least-privilege (not “everyone’s an admin”)
- A system security plan written down somewhere other than a shared drive from 2019
How The Citadel Cyber approaches it
We don’t hand you a binder and wish you luck.
- Assessment first — We map where you actually are vs. where you need to be. No surprises.
- Prioritized remediation — We fix the highest-impact gaps first so you’re making progress, not just checking boxes.
- Documentation — Your System Security Plan, policies, and evidence package are built as we go, not cobbled together at the last minute.
- Ongoing maintenance — Certification isn’t a one-and-done. We stay with you so your posture doesn’t backslide.
The local angle
Based in Orange County, The Citadel Cyber works with manufacturers and defense-adjacent businesses across Southern California. If you can’t spell “NIST 800-171” right now, that’s fine. We translate.
What this is NOT
- A one-time checklist you’ll copy-paste
- A 200-page assessment report that sits in a drawer
- Fear-based sales tactics
This is real compliance work, done by people who’ve been in the trenches.
Ready to find your gaps?
Schedule your free CMMC readiness assessment: https://citadelcyber.ai/
Call: 714-794-2803