CMMC vs ISO 27001: What Counts, What Doesn't, and What to Do Next

Last reviewed: June 2026 · Last verified: June 17, 2026

CMMC vs ISO 27001 comes down to one fact: ISO/IEC 27001 does not satisfy CMMC, and there is no reciprocity — nothing in 32 CFR Part 170 reduces your CMMC obligation because you hold ISO 27001. It is a genuine head start toward the NIST SP 800-171 Revision 2 baseline behind CMMC Level 2, but it is not a substitute.

If you came here hoping your ISO certificate counts as a CMMC status, the honest answer is no — and we’ll show you exactly why, with the rule text to back it. But here’s the part most comparison pages skip, and the one that quietly sinks “we’re already ISO certified” the moment an assessment starts: it is usually not your controls that fail you. It’s your scope. Give us two minutes and you’ll know what actually carries over, what still has to be built and proven, what it costs in 2026, and which kind of provider to call next.

That’s the whole decision in three parts — does ISO count, what’s the gap, and what do I do about it.Let’s resolve each one.

• Who this is for: DIB contractors, subcontractors, MSPs, CISOs, IT directors, FSOs, contracts officers, and CEOs of small defense suppliers who already hold — or are weighing — ISO/IEC 27001 and need to know what it does for CMMC.
• Who this is not for: anyone looking for a generic ISO 27001 how-to, a “best provider” ranking, or legal advice on a specific contract.
• The key qualifier: if a contract clause or prime flow-down requires CMMC, your ISO certificate is not the CMMC status. Your path depends on whether you handle FCI or CUI, your required level and assessment type, your IT and cloud environment, and your contract timeline.

The Defense Compliance Report is the independent trade publication and decision resource for CMMC and Defense Industrial Base compliance — explaining the CMMC Final Rule with primary-source citation on every claim and mapping a contractor’s level, CUI scope, assessment type, and timeline to the right provider category, so DIB contractors choose the right CMMC path before they spend six figures.

CMMC vs ISO 27001 at a glance

FCI = Federal Contract Information. CUI = Controlled Unclassified Information. SPRS = Supplier Performance Risk System, the DoD database where scores and affirmations are posted. C3PAO = Certified Third-Party Assessment Organization. DIBCAC = the Defense Contract Management Agency’s Defense Industrial Base Cybersecurity Assessment Center.

The right CMMC provider isn’t the same for every contractor — the category you need (a C3PAO, an RPO, an MSSP, a GRC platform, or a CUI enclave) depends on your required CMMC level, whether you handle FCI or CUI, your assessment type, your cloud and IT environment, and your contract timeline. The contract clause sets your level, not a checklist. Because a general answer can’t resolve those for you, use The Defense Compliance Report’s Find My CMMC Path tool to map your situation to the right provider category before you request quotes — and do not submit CUI, drawings, or sensitive contract details.

Try this first — the ISO-to-CMMC Scope Check (6 questions, no CUI). Answer six quick questions — your ISO scope, whether you handle FCI or CUI, what triggered the requirement, the CMMC status you’ve been asked for, your cloud environment, and your timeline — and get your likely first provider category (RPO/RP, MSP/MSSP, GRC platform, CUI enclave, or C3PAO) plus a short evidence checklist. It takes about a minute, and it won’t ask you for anything sensitive. Run the Scope Check →

Does ISO 27001 count for CMMC?

No. ISO/IEC 27001 does not count as a CMMC certification, and there is no reciprocity — 32 CFR Part 170, the CMMC Program Rule, contains no provision that reduces your CMMC obligation because you hold another certification. If your contract requires CMMC, you must achieve the specific status it names — Level 1 or Level 2 by self-assessment, Level 2 by an authorized C3PAO, or Level 3 by DIBCAC. Your ISO work still matters, but as evidence and a head start, not a substitute.

Let’s be plain about it, because the cost of getting this wrong is a failed assessment and a lost award. We read the CMMC Program Rule (32 CFR Part 170) and the DoD’s contract clause (DFARS 252.204-7021). Neither one says an ISO 27001 certificate satisfies the requirement. The contract or solicitation specifies the CMMC status you have to meet — Level 1 (Self), Level 2 (Self), Level 2 (C3PAO), or Level 3 (DIBCAC) — and you have to hold that status at the level required (DFARS 252.204-7021; -7025). An ISO certificate is not one of those statuses. Practitioners across the industry land in the same place: there is no reciprocity mechanism that converts an ISO 27001 certificate into a CMMC status. (For the mechanics of how a status is earned, see our CMMC certification process walkthrough.)

So if a prime flowed down CMMC language and you were planning to wave your ISO certificate at them — that won’t close it.

It helps to separate what the rule states from what you actually have to checkin your own shop. This is where “we’re certified” and “we’ll pass” drift apart:

Now the part that actually saves you money. Here is the one honest admission we’ll make on this page, and it’s the most useful sentence in it: if your ISO certificate’s scope excludes the systems, people, and processes where CUI actually lives, your ISO work may help far less than you hoped.Plenty of ISO certificates are scoped to a product line, a SaaS platform, or a data center — not to the email, file shares, engineering tools, and endpoints where CUI really moves. When the certified ISMS scope and the CUI boundary don’t overlap, the head start shrinks fast.

That’s not a reason to regret ISO. It’s the reason this is a scoping and evidence question, not a certificate-label question — and scoping is the cheapest lever you have. Get the CUI boundary right and you can shrink the controls, the evidence, and the bill. Get it wrong and every line item grows.

CMMC vs ISO 27001 comparison: what actually changes for a defense contractor

For a defense contractor, the practical difference isn’t “which framework is better.” It’s that CMMC is tied to DoD contract eligibility and the safeguarding of FCI and CUI, while ISO/IEC 27001 is a broader information security management system (ISMS) standard that can support — but not replace — the CMMC requirement. ISO is the management engine; CMMC is the federal wiring bolted to your contract.

We built the table below as a decision tool, not a glossary. Each row is a question you’re actually asking, with the answer for each standard and the primary source behind it.

Read in one breath: ISO is usually the broader management-system layer. CMMC is the contract-specific FCI/CUI compliance-and-assessment layer. The smart move isn’t picking a label — it’s aligning the management system you already run with the CMMC scope, evidence, and assessment path your contract requires.

How much of ISO 27001 actually transfers to CMMC Level 2?

A mature ISO/IEC 27001:2022 ISMS gives the strongest head start in the governance-heavy families — Access Control, Awareness & Training, Personnel Security, Physical Protection, and Risk Assessment — and the least in the prescriptive, evidence-heavy, CUI-specific families, especially System & Communications Protection (which requires FIPS-validated cryptography and boundary protection). The map below rates all 14 NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 2 families and names the specific gap you still owe.

This is the asset we couldn’t find anywhere else, so we built it. Most pages tell you “there’s significant overlap” or quote a single number — we’ve seen “80%,” “81%,” “60–70 of the 110.” We don’t repeat those as fact, because overlap isn’t uniform and a single percentage hides where the real work is. Here’s our family-by-family read instead.

A note on method, because you should be able to check us: the ratings below are The Defense Compliance Report’s editorial mapping, built by comparing the published control structures of ISO/IEC 27001:2022 (Annex A) against NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 2 and the assessment objectives in NIST SP 800-171A. It’s an orientation tool, not an official crosswalk, and not compliance advice. Your real coverage depends on your evidence and your scope.

Coverage legend: Strong = a mature ISMS usually pre-builds most of this family conceptually · Partial = the concept exists in ISO but CMMC’s prescription and evidence create real gaps · Weak = ISO touches it lightly; expect significant work.

Family requirement counts and control objectives are from NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 2 and NIST SP 800-171A; ISO areas are from ISO/IEC 27001:2022, Annex A.

The one-paragraph takeaway:a real ISMS does the heavy lifting on governance, training, personnel, physical security, and risk — the families where you’ve already built the muscle. The work concentrates in the prescriptive technical and CUI-specific families, and it bunches hardest in System & Communications Protection, where CMMC demands FIPS-validated cryptography (validated modules, not just “we encrypt things”) and engineered boundary protection. Add CUI media marking, multifactor authentication everywhere in scope, and the DFARS 72-hour reporting capability, and you have most of an ISO-certified shop’s real punch list.

What you can reuse from ISO 27001 — and what you still have to build

You can reuse ISO 27001 governance, policies, risk processes, internal-audit discipline, supplier controls, and security evidence — but only for the systems and people inside your CMMC scope, and only after you map each artifact to the matching NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 2 requirement. The certificate itself proves nothing to an assessor; the underlying evidence, re-pointed at CUI scope, is what carries over.

Think of it as a salvage operation, not a teardown. Here’s what’s worth pulling forward, what still has to be proven, the artifact you’ll need to produce, and the kind of provider that typically helps.

Provider categories, defined once: RPO/RP = Registered Provider Organization / Registered Practitioner (CMMC readiness advisory). MSP/MSSP = Managed (Security) Service Provider (technical implementation and operations). GRC platform = governance, risk, and compliance software for evidence and workflow. CUI enclave = a managed environment that isolates CUI to shrink your scope. C3PAO = the firm that performs your formal Level 2 assessment.

One caution we’ll repeat because it’s where good programs trip: don’t hand ISO artifacts to a CMMC assessor without confirming scope, mapping each one to a NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 2 requirement, assigning an owner, and checking that the evidence is current and actually covers the assessment objective. A clean ISO binder is a head start, not a finish line.

Where ISO 27001 falls short for CMMC Level 2

ISO 27001 most often falls short for CMMC in three ways: the certified ISMS scope doesn’t match the CUI environment, the controls aren’t mapped requirement-by-requirement to NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 2, and the contractor hasn’t built the CMMC-specific obligations — scoping, CUI handling, DFARS 72-hour reporting, FIPS-validated cryptography, SPRS, the SSP, the POA&M, and the annual affirmation. It’s a scope-and-evidence problem far more than an ISO-quality problem.

We pulled these out of the rule text so you can pressure-test your own program. Here are the seven CMMC obligations that have essentially no ISO 27001 equivalent — the ones that catch ISO-certified shops off guard.

1. A required CMMC assessment, with no ISO reciprocity. Nothing in 32 CFR Part 170 lets ISO substitute for CMMC. If your contract requires Level 2 (C3PAO), ISO doesn’t replace the C3PAO assessment; if it allows Level 2 (Self), ISO doesn’t replace the self-assessment, the SPRS submission, or the annual affirmation. Your ISO artifacts are evidence, not a credential.
2. Scope is your FCI/CUI boundary, not your whole company. ISO scopes an org-wide ISMS you define; CMMC scopes the systems that process, store, or transmit FCI/CUI, plus the assets and external service providers that protect them — which you can deliberately shrink, often with a CUI enclave, to cut cost (32 CFR Part 170).
3. CUI marking and handling per the National Archives CUI Registry and 32 CFR Part 2002 — identification, marking, and dissemination controls. ISO has no concept of CUI.
4. DFARS 252.204-7012 cyber-incident reporting — “rapidly report” to DoD, defined as within 72 hours via DIBNet, hold a DoD-approved medium-assurance certificate, and submit malicious software (DFARS 252.204-7012). ISO incident management does not require reporting to the government.
5. FIPS-validated cryptography. CMMC requires validated modules (FIPS 140) to protect CUI — for example, requirement 3.13.11 (NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 2). ISO requires “cryptography” chosen by risk, with no validation mandate.
6. Requirement-objective scoring, recorded in federal systems. You’re scored met/not-met against the objectives in NIST SP 800-171A, plus the DoD scoring methodology — no risk-based exclusions and no Statement of Applicability. Level 2 self-assessment scores are posted to SPRS; Level 2 C3PAO results are recorded in CMMC’s instance of eMASS (the Enterprise Mission Assurance Support Service) and a score is transmitted to SPRS (32 CFR Part 170).
7. The federal artifacts plus affirmation: an SSP in NIST format, a POA&M, and an annual affirmation by a senior official in SPRS. A Conditional CMMC status from open POA&M items lasts a maximum of 180 days before it must be closed out (DFARS final rule).

And one more that bites cloud-heavy shops: if you process CUI in the cloud, DFARS 252.204-7012 requires the cloud service to meet FedRAMP Moderate (or equivalent) — a federal-specific bar ISO doesn’t impose. This is where Microsoft GCC High, AWS GovCloud, or a managed CUI enclave usually enter the conversation.

If you read that list and several items are genuinely missing — say, no FIPS-validated cryptography today, or CUI scattered across email, endpoints, and a half-dozen file shares — that’s not a verdict, it’s a scoping signal. The fastest, cheapest fix is usually to reduce the boundary: move CUI into an enclave so fewer systems carry the controls. That’s a category decision, and it’s exactly what the matching tool is for.

CMMC or ISO 27001 — which do you need, and in what order?

If your DoD contract or flow-down requires CMMC for systems that handle CUI, expect a Level 2 path — self-assessed or C3PAO-assessed, depending on the status the contract specifies — regardless of ISO. If the contract only involves FCI and specifies CMMC Level 1, the Level 1 path applies. If you sell only commercially or internationally and touch no DoD FCI/CUI, ISO 27001 (or SOC 2) is your fit and CMMC may not apply at all. Many DIB contractors maintain both. The contract clause sets your level, not a checklist.

Find your row. This is The CMMC Path Framework applied to the ISO question — and remember, it routes you to a category, not a named provider, and it isn’t a score or compliance advice.

The rule of thumb: if the contract is real, CMMC leads. If commercial trust is the main driver, ISO can lead. If both matter, design the ISMS so ISO supports CMMC instead of creating a parallel paperwork universe.

One disqualifier, stated honestly: if you genuinely don’t handle DoD FCI or CUI — no DoD contracts, no flow-downs, no CUI on your systems — then CMMC may not apply to you, and ISO 27001 or SOC 2 is likely the better use of your budget. Confirm that with a CMMC Registered Practitioner (RP/RPO) or a federal-contracts attorney before you spend either way; the contract clause and your CUI handling decide this, not a blog.

What CMMC vs ISO 27001 costs in 2026 — and how long each takes

ISO/IEC 27001 certification commonly runs in the low five figures for the audit, plus implementation, over roughly three to twelve months. For CMMC Level 2, DoD’s own rule estimates the certification assessment plus three years of affirmations at about $104,670 for a small entity and $117,768 for a larger one — and DoD is explicit that figure excludes the cost of implementing the underlying NIST SP 800-171 requirements. Real-world readiness, remediation, and documentation push first-year totals higher, and a strong ISO program can shrink them.

We’ll give you numbers you can budget against — with their sources, so you know what’s a government estimate and what’s a market range. Treat the market ranges as planning figures, not a quote.

DoD figures are from the 2024 CMMC Program Rule and the 2025 DFARS final rule (Federal Register); DoD states those estimates exclude implementing the underlying FAR 52.204-21 and NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 2 requirements, which it treats as already required. Market ranges are compiled from multiple 2026 published cost analyses for planning — not a DCR proprietary dataset. For a deeper breakdown, see what CMMC actually costs.

What actually moves your number? Five things, in order: the size of your CUI scope (more systems and users, more controls and evidence); whether your ISO scope overlaps your CUI scope (if it doesn’t, the reuse discount evaporates); your current technical maturity (gaps in MFA, logging, encryption, and vulnerability management drive remediation); your cloud architecture (commercial cloud vs GCC High vs an enclave changes the path); and your evidence maturity(assessors grade objective evidence, not policy binders). This is the honest reason the same “Level 2” costs one firm $80,000 and another $280,000.

Here’s the encouraging half, and it’s why this whole exercise pays off: several 2026 cost analyses estimate that organizations already holding ISO 27001 or SOC 2 spend meaningfully less on CMMC remediation — on the order of a quarter to a half less — but only when the ISO scope actually overlaps the CUI boundary.That condition is the whole game. Your ISO investment isn’t wasted; it’s a down payment you collect on by getting the scope right.

The clock you’re actually racing

There’s one real source of scarcity here, and it isn’t manufactured. CMMC moves in phases. Phase 1 runs November 10, 2025 through November 9, 2026; Phase 2 begins November 10, 2026, the point at which a Level 2 (C3PAO) certification can become a condition of award in applicable contracts — though DoD can defer that requirement to an option period (DoD CIO, CMMC materials). Behind that date sits a genuine bottleneck. DoD’s regulatory analysis estimates roughly 118,000 contractors will eventually need a Level 2 certification (about 80,000 of them small businesses), and the assessor workforce is far behind. Todd Gagnon, who leads the assessor-credentialing program (the CAICO) at ISACA, told DefenseScoopin late 2025 that the pool of qualified assessors is “nowhere near adequate,” and has estimated that a mature program will need roughly 40,000 third-party assessments a year. Industry reporting in early 2026 counted fewer than 100 authorized C3PAOs; you can check the current number on the Cyber AB Marketplace. Slots are already booking months out, and waiting doesn’t lower your cost — it raises it and pushes your award eligibility into a queue.

How CMMC assessments differ from ISO 27001 audits

CMMC assessment type depends on your required status: Level 1 is self-assessed, Level 2 is self-assessed or assessed by an authorized C3PAO depending on the contract, and Level 3 is assessed by DIBCAC. ISO/IEC 27001 certification is issued by an accredited Certification Body against the ISMS standard. They are different assurance models, and a certificate from one is not a status in the other.

The mechanics matter because they explain why “we passed our ISO audit” doesn’t transfer.

ISO 27001 runs in two stages — a documentation review (Stage 1) and an implementation audit (Stage 2) — leading to a three-year certificate with annual surveillance audits, and your Statement of Applicability sits at the center, justifying which controls you included and excluded.

CMMC runs differently: you scope the environment, run a gap assessment, remediate, write your SSP and POA&M, then either self-assess or undergo an authorized C3PAO assessment, and your result lands in SPRS (self) or CMMC eMASS with a score to SPRS (C3PAO), with an annual affirmation. You’re graded met/not-met against the objectives in NIST SP 800-171A under the DoD scoring methodology — there’s no SoA and no “we accepted that risk.” (For the requirement set itself, see CMMC Level 2 requirements.)

One ecosystem update worth knowing, because it changed in 2026: as of April 1, 2026, ISACA serves as the CAICO — the body that trains and credentials CMMC assessors and instructors — while the Cyber AB remains the CMMC accreditation bodythat authorizes C3PAOs and runs the Marketplace. If you’re vetting an assessor or a readiness firm, that’s the current chain of authority.

Can one consultant do both ISO 27001 and CMMC?

A qualified readiness consultant can help you build a security program that supports both ISO 27001 and CMMC, but readiness help and the formal CMMC assessment must stay separate. The Cyber AB’s Code of Professional Conduct makes the conflict explicit: a C3PAO cannot perform a Level 2 certification assessment where it served as your consultant to prepare for a CMMC assessment within the prohibited window (Cyber AB Code of Professional Conduct v2.0). Keep readiness and assessment in different hands.

This trips up buyers who assume “one firm, one invoice” is simpler. It can cost you a clean assessment. Here’s the buyer-safe way to think about the roles:

• RPO/RP — readiness, scoping, gap assessments, documentation, implementation guidance.
• MSP/MSSP — technical implementation and operations: identity, endpoints, logging, monitoring, cloud.
• GRC platform — evidence management, control ownership, SSP/POA&M workflows (a supporting layer, not the whole solution — software alone does not make you compliant).
• CUI enclave — scope reduction by isolating CUI in a managed environment.
• C3PAO — the formal Level 2 assessment, used only when you’re assessment-ready and independence is preserved.

A clean sequence that keeps you out of trouble: use an RPO/RP or qualified advisor to scope and gap-assess; use an MSP/MSSP or enclave provider to implement; use a GRC platform to manage evidence; and bring in an authorized C3PAO only for the assessment. The specific rule to respect: don’t ask a C3PAO (or its assessment team) to assess an engagement where it previously served as your CMMC readiness, advisory, or implementation consultant inside the prohibited conflict window. Before you sign with anyone, confirm a C3PAO’s status on the Cyber AB Marketplace, ask how they manage conflicts of interest, and ask whether they’ve sold you consulting, products, or implementation that could compromise their independence as your assessor.

Which kind of provider do you need? It depends on whether your problem is scoping, implementation, evidence, environment design, or assessment.

A real edge case: enterprise-wide ISO, but CUI lives in an enclave

This works, but only if you document the two scopes separately and connect them clearly. ISO can govern the broader ISMS while CMMC focuses on the assets and processes that handle CUI, plus the related asset categories and any external service providers. The risk is assuming your enterprise ISO certificate automatically covers a CUI enclave it was never scoped to include.

We see a few recurring patterns. The good one: an enterprise ISO certificate paired with a tight CMMC enclave, where CUI workflows are genuinely contained — that’s efficient. The dangerous ones: an ISO certificate that explicitly excludes the CUI systems (your maturity helps less than the certificate implies), or CUI smeared across email, endpoints, ERP, and file shares with no boundary (expect either major remediation or an enclave migration). If your CUI collaboration runs through GCC High or a similar managed environment, that centralizes a lot — but you still have to align identity, endpoints, processes, and evidence to the CMMC objectives.

To make an enclave defensible at assessment, document: your CMMC assessment scope, an asset inventory, a network diagram, the SSP, a data-flow diagram, your CUI-handling process, external service-provider roles, cloud inheritance, evidence ownership, and how the ISO scope relates to the CMMC scope. That paperwork is what turns “we think CUI is contained” into “here’s the boundary, and here’s the proof.”

Your next step if you have ISO 27001 and need CMMC

Start with scope, not software. Read the contract clause or flow-down, determine whether you handle FCI or CUI, confirm the required level and assessment status, map your ISO artifacts to NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 2, separate readiness from assessment, and choose the provider category that matches your gap. Don’t rebuild your program around NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 3 — Rev. 2 is the current CMMC Level 2 baseline.

Here’s the ten-step path we’d hand a contractor who already has ISO 27001 and just saw a CMMC requirement:

1. Pull the solicitation, contract clause, or prime flow-down.
2. Determine whether the work involves FCI, CUI, or both.
3. Confirm the required CMMC level and assessment status (Self or C3PAO).
4. Define your CMMC scope — the boundary around FCI/CUI.
5. Compare your ISO scope against the systems where FCI/CUI actually lives.
6. Build or update your asset inventory and your network and data-flow diagrams.
7. Map your ISO artifacts to NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 2, requirement by requirement.
8. Identify the gaps that need technical remediation (FIPS-validated crypto, MFA, logging, CUI marking, 72-hour reporting).
9. Choose your provider category: RPO/RP, MSP/MSSP, GRC, CUI enclave, or C3PAO.
10. Prepare your SPRS posting (or eMASS path), affirmation, and assessment plan.

And what not to do: don’t assume ISO certification means CMMC readiness; don’t ask one firm to both remediate and assess the same engagement; don’t upload CUI into a matching form, a software demo, or any public intake; don’t pick a provider by brand before you’ve picked the category; and don’t treat NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 3 as the controlling standard. NIST finalized Rev. 3 in 2024, and it supersedes Rev. 2 in NIST’s own catalog — but DoD’s CMMC alignment materials confirm that CMMC assessments remain against Rev. 2until Rev. 3 is adopted into CMMC through future rulemaking, at which point DoD will publish a new scoring methodology. Building your documentation around Rev. 3 today creates gaps against the standard you’ll actually be graded on (32 CFR Part 170; DoD CIO, “CMMC Alignment to NIST Standards”).

What we actually verified for this guide

This comparison is built on primary and authoritative sources, not vendor claims, and we dated every regulatory fact. The headline check: CMMC Level 2 remains tied to NIST SP 800-171 Revision 2 — not Revision 3 — as of mid-2026, confirmed against 32 CFR Part 170 and the DoD CIO’s “CMMC Alignment to NIST Standards” materials.

A word on our method and our judgment. The family-by-family coverage map above is our editorial mapping, built on the published control structures of both standards — it’s an orientation tool, not an official crosswalk, and not compliance advice. The market cost ranges are compiled from multiple 2026 published analyses for planning, distinct from DoD’s primary-source estimates, which we’ve labeled as such. Our editorial conclusion is straightforward: ISO 27001 is genuinely valuable for CMMC readiness, but it is not a CMMC status, because the governing sources tie CMMC to your contract, your FCI/CUI scope, your level, your assessment type, your SPRS/eMASS posting, and NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 2 at Level 2. We re-verify this page quarterly and on any DoD rulemaking, and update the date above when we do. See our editorial standards and corrections policy.

CMMC vs ISO 27001 FAQ

Most CMMC vs ISO 27001 confusion comes from a single mistake: treating control overlap as certification or assessment reciprocity. ISO 27001 can support the security program behind CMMC, but DoD contractors still have to satisfy the CMMC status that applies to their contract, data, scope, and assessment type.