CMMC Cybersecurity Challenges Small Business Face When Implementing Basic Requirements

Presented In Partnership with the SBA

Our adversaries actively steal the United States military and industrial competitive advantage. Ubiquitous access to every organization’s multi-interconnected information systems facilitates this theft. The US Federal government recognizes the risk of theft of its sensitive information–such as Federal Contract Information (FCI) and Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI)–from its supply chains’ information systems. Therefore, all Federal contractors have certain basic cybersecurity requirements they must implement in their own internal information technology (IT) systems that process Federal contract-related data.

Mr. Adam Austin, Cybersecurity Lead at Totem.Tech, a small veteran-owned prime USAF contractor, will describe some of the challenges small businesses face when implementing these requirements and pursuing certification, with a focus on expected costs and timelines. Mr. Austin will present data gleaned from his own company’s cybersecurity journey and that of Totem’s hundreds of clients. Tech has served. The presentation will introduce several resources Apex Accelerator clients can use to navigate the cybersecurity compliance landscape.

Get Free Assistance with Government Contracting

The APEX Accelerator Team will discuss the free services offered to small business owners when exploring government contracting opportunities.

PLEASE NOTE: Once you have registered, you will be sent access details to join the webinar in a separate email.

Learn from the experts

Nadine Clark
Director of APEX (Formally known as Procurement Technical Assistance Center), UCEDC

In her role as UCEDC’s Director of PTAC, Nadine oversees various procurement activities for small business owners seeking to market and sell their specific products and services to federal, state and local government agencies.

With more than 25 years of combined experience in both the public and private sectors of government contracting, Nadine has a thorough grasp of how to navigate the government contracting system. She believes that this familiarity enables her to successfully help small businesses understand how to find, bid, win, and perform on government contracts.

Adam Austin
Adam Austin is the Co-owner and Cybersecurity Lead at Totem.Tech

A minority veteran-owned Prime DoD contractor. Mr. Austin has over a decade of experience securing classified, unclassified, and HIPAA-environment US Government IT systems, having worked with NASA, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Systems (CMS), and all branches of the Department of Defense. Adam holds a Master’s in Information Assurance from Capitol Technology University, is CISA, CISM, and Security+ certified, and is a
CMMC Registered Practitioner (CMMC-RP). Adam’s mission is to leverage his experience to help small businesses in regulatory environments implement affordable, compliant, risk-based cybersecurity programs.

UCEDC’s APEX Accelerator is supported by the Department of Defense Office of Small Business Programs.