Industries · Defense
CDRLs, ITAR/EAR questions, and CMMC evidence requests do not pause because your M365 tenant was configured like a consumer startup. intSignal runs managed IT, MDR, and tested recovery with change and access discipline your FSO, ISSM, and primes can trace—without us substituting for your export counsel, security clearance adjudication, or CMMC Certified Assessor.
Contractor models
Primes, subcontractors, and software engineering services—where flow-down cyber and export rules meet day-to-day IT.
Multi-tenant engineering environments, SAP or Deltek-adjacent program stacks, and customer-owned tooling where one misrouted attachment becomes a disclosure event.
Flow-down clauses, JIT access for program teams, and evidence packages that match what the prime’s supplier portal asks for—not PDF theater.
Dev pipelines, build farms, and SaaS sprawl where “we’ll segment later” meets SBOM and customer software assurance questionnaires.
Pressures
Where DIB IT frays
Default sharing links, personal devices in labs, and subcontractor VPNs that never got removed after the task order ended. POA&M items that reopen every assessment because nobody owns the ticket.
intSignal delivery
Named ownership from identity lifecycle to containment—with monthly evidence your ISSM and prime reviewers can correlate to control IDs.
Outcome mosaic
Workstations, VDI, and lab patterns that respect configuration baselines and change freezes.
PAM-aware patterns for admins, integrators, and emergency break-glass—not permanent shared root.
Email and web controls, vendor onboarding, and third-party risk touchpoints with procurement.
Restore testing that includes program data classes your contracts reference.
Documentation that survives insurer and customer scrutiny after near-misses.
Architecture, tool consolidation, and handoff to managed run-state.
Six delivery threads
MDR, SOC, and IR playbooks that name program notification paths—not only IT.
Teams, SharePoint, and email patterns your SSP describes—executed, not aspirational.
JML tied to badges, program access, and sponsor changes as your security office directs.
Evidence tasks under your policies—we do not sign your SPRS score or CMMC certificate.
Servers, hybrid connectivity, and monitoring integrations as your boundary allows.
Where program classification and customer agreements permit cloud analytics.
Assurance
We do not determine export jurisdiction or CUI categories—your counsel and FSO own those calls.
CAB notes, approvals, and privileged session records suitable for ITGC-style review.
SLA-driven remediation with documented risk acceptance when engineering windows require deferral.
Containment timelines formatted for legal, communications, and customer notification clauses.
Results tied to systems your SSP lists—not generic “backup OK” screenshots.
Inventory and review cadence aligned with flow-down and procurement.
Phishing and reporting metrics your security awareness program can fold in—not a parallel training vendor unless you want one.
Expand domains
Operational tasks—logging completeness, access reviews, vulnerability SLAs, backup testing—that your RPO and assessor map to practices at the level you pursue. CMMC certification outcomes and SPRS self-assessment scores remain your management assertions with your C3PAO or assessor.
Technical controls and DLP execution according to marking and handling guidance your FSO and counsel publish—not intSignal deciding what is or is not CUI.
Directory, collaboration, and access settings executed per documentation you approve. Export determinations and license conditions remain with your export counsel and Empowered Official.
Many programs require separate contracts, facilities, and personnel clearances intSignal may not hold. We document what we can and cannot touch before work begins—no implied access to classified systems without explicit, lawful scope.
Engagement
From joint discovery through a defensible run state—with tickets and evidence your FSO and assessors can follow.
Contract footprint, CUI enclaves as you define them, identity sources, subcontractor map, prior assessment themes and incidents.
Gap analysis against your control baseline; joint prioritization with security, contracts, and engineering.
Identity cleanup, segmentation execution in approved windows, MDR tuning, DR tests with program leads at the table.
MSP and SOC steady state with monthly reporting mapped to POA&M and customer review cadences.
Primes & legal
Outages become social threads faster than press releases. We hContainment and documentation have to satisfy multiple audiences at once. We maintain evidence discipline and escalation trees so general counsel, security, and program leadership reference one timeline—without improvising export or classification conclusions.elp you rehearse customer-facing language, service channels, and technical facts that stay aligned—so “we’re investigating” does not contradict what parents see on Downdetector.
Outcomes
Evidence that maps to control IDs and ticket IDs—not last-minute binder assembly.
Access that expires with task orders and proof for supplier portals.
Security and engineering on correlated telemetry when you authorize that linkage.
Fewer vendor arguments when ERP, PLM, and SOC disagree during month-end or a program review.
FAQ
No. We deliver managed IT and security operations tasks mapped to practices your RPO and assessor define. CMMC certification decisions and assessment outcomes belong to your organization and the accredited assessment ecosystem.
When contract, citizenship, and data residency rules permit, we execute scoped administration and security monitoring according to your SOW. Sovereignty, licensing, and customer-owned tenant boundaries are documented up front.
Not without explicit lawful scope, cleared facilities, and contracts tailored to those environments. Most delivery is enterprise and CUI systems at the boundary your ISSM and customer approve.
We structure evidence exports, control narratives, and remediation tickets to match the questionnaires and artifact lists your prime publishes—while your contracts team confirms accuracy and completeness before submission.
Share contract mix (prime, sub, software), approximate cleared and uncleared headcount, primary collaboration and engineering stack, and top compliance drivers. We respond with a proposed service map, RACI, and commercial approach.
Every company in the defense industrial base inherits its security requirements from its contracts. DFARS clause 252.204-7012 obligates contractors and their subcontractors to safeguard Controlled Unclassified Information, or CUI, by implementing the 110 controls of NIST SP 800-171 and to report a cyber incident to the Department of Defense within 72 hours. CMMC 2.0 adds a verification regime on top of those same controls: Level 1 self-assessment for basic Federal Contract Information, Level 2 for CUI assessed against 800-171 with a third-party C3PAO assessment for prioritized programs, and Level 3 drawing on the enhanced requirements of NIST 800-172 for the highest-value work. Because primes flow these clauses down and a scored SPRS self-assessment now carries an affirming senior official, an inflated score or a lapsed control is a False Claims Act exposure, not merely a lost bid.
intSignal builds a compliance-driven program around a defined CUI boundary, so the assessment scope is deliberately drawn instead of accidentally covering your whole enterprise. We enclave CUI in a GCC High or equivalent authorized environment where practical, enforce FIPS-validated encryption in transit and at rest, and keep a living System Security Plan and Plan of Action and Milestones that map every control to real evidence. The result is that each of the 110 controls has an owner, a configuration, and an artifact an assessor can inspect. Certification and the formal assessment outcome remain with your chosen C3PAO or the DoD assessor; we do the technical and operational work that makes that assessment survivable.
The defense supply chain is only as strong as its smallest supplier, and adversaries know it. Rather than attack a prime directly, nation-state and criminal actors compromise a second- or third-tier machine shop or engineering firm that holds the same drawings and technical data but runs a fraction of the security. That is why DFARS and CMMC flow down: a subcontractor handling CUI carries the same 800-171 obligations as the prime that hired it. We assess your own third parties the way your customers assess you, tracking which vendors touch CUI, what their SPRS scores and attestations say, and how remote access from integrators and OEMs is brokered, so a partner's weak control does not become your reportable incident.
Protecting CUI comes down to who can reach it and what they can do with it. intSignal implements zero trust principles so identity, device posture, and least privilege govern every request instead of a trusted network perimeter: phishing-resistant MFA, conditional access, and privileged access management that vaults and records administrative sessions. Data loss prevention labels and tracks CUI so it cannot be mailed to a personal account or copied to unmanaged media, and continuous monitoring watches for the slow exfiltration that marks both espionage and insider theft. Because the insider threat is real in this sector, we tie entitlements to HR and clearance status, review access on a schedule, and alert on the behavior that precedes a leak rather than trusting a badge.
Defense contractors face the top of the threat pyramid. Advanced persistent threats backed by nation-states run patient, well-funded campaigns to steal weapons-system designs, export-controlled technical data, and the CUI that confers a strategic edge, and they will dwell for months to get it. Many contractors are also manufacturers, running CNC machines, robotic cells, additive manufacturing, and test equipment on production lines that were never designed to be patched or exposed to the internet. We segment that operational technology from the business network and from the CUI enclave, monitor it passively so fragile controllers are never probed into a fault, and keep export-controlled technical data under the access and encryption controls that ITAR and EAR demand. Availability on the line and confidentiality of the data are protected as separate, first-class goals.
Compliance in this sector is continuous, not a once-a-year scramble. A DIBCAC review or a C3PAO assessment will ask you to prove a control was operating on a given day, so intSignal centralizes logging into a SIEM, retains audit records to the required timelines, and keeps evidence generated as a byproduct of daily operations rather than reconstructed under deadline. Change records, access reviews, vulnerability remediation with risk-acceptance trails, and incident timelines are ready when an assessor, a prime, or your cyber-insurer asks. Audit readiness becomes a state you maintain, not a project you panic through.
Yes. We implement and operate the 110 NIST 800-171 controls that Level 2 is assessed against, enclave your CUI, and maintain the System Security Plan and Plan of Action and Milestones with evidence for each control. We prepare you for the C3PAO assessment and keep your SPRS score accurate and defensible. The certification decision itself stays with your accredited C3PAO or the DoD assessor.
CUI is the unclassified information the government requires you to protect, such as controlled technical data, drawings, and specifications marked under DFARS. We define a CUI boundary and move that data into a controlled enclave so only the systems and people that genuinely need it fall in assessment scope. That keeps both your risk and your compliance cost down instead of hardening the entire company to the same level.
Yes. DFARS and CMMC obligations flow down from the prime to any subcontractor that stores, processes, or transmits CUI. Your required CMMC level depends on the data you handle, not your size or tier. We right-size the program to your actual data flows so a small shop can meet its obligations without a prime's budget.
Yes. Many defense manufacturers run CNC, PLC, and additive-manufacturing equipment that cannot be patched or exposed like office IT. We segment that OT from the business network and the CUI enclave, monitor it passively to avoid causing faults, and protect export-controlled technical data under ITAR and EAR access controls. Availability of the line and protection of the data are handled as distinct, first-class goals.
We assume both a patient external adversary and a possible malicious or negligent insider. Least-privilege access, privileged access management, data loss prevention, and continuous monitoring limit what any account can reach and flag exfiltration early. Entitlements are tied to HR and clearance status and reviewed on a schedule, and 24/7 detection and response shortens the dwell time nation-state actors rely on.