CMMC & NIST 800-171 Pentesting for MSPs

Defense contractors and their suppliers can’t bluff their way through a CMMC assessment anymore. CMMC 2.0 Level 2 requires a third-party assessment for most contractors handling Controlled Unclassified Information, and even self-assessing contractors at Level 1 are facing scrutiny they didn’t get a few years ago. Penetration testing is one of the cleanest ways to demonstrate that the technical controls in NIST SP 800-171 actually work.

Where pentesting maps to 800-171

NIST 800-171 lays out 110 security requirements across 14 control families. A pentest exercises requirements across Access Control (3.1), Audit and Accountability (3.3), Configuration Management (3.4), Identification and Authentication (3.5), Risk Assessment (3.11), Security Assessment (3.12), and System and Communications Protection (3.13). C3PAOs running a CMMC Level 2 assessment will look at pentest evidence under 3.12.1 and 3.12.3 specifically: the requirements that demand periodic security assessments and continuous monitoring.

What you get from our CMMC-aligned pentest

• Manual external and internal testing of the CUI environment
• Findings cross-referenced to the specific 800-171 control families they exercise
• Validation of CUI boundary controls and segmentation from non-CUI networks
• Active Directory and identity testing: a frequent gap in DIB networks
• A report formatted so your C3PAO assessor can move quickly through the security assessment evidence
• Free remediation retesting to close findings before the formal assessment

The DIB has its own quirks

Defense industrial base clients often run hybrid environments: some legacy on-prem, some cloud, some that haven’t been touched since the last contract renewal. Our pentesters know how to navigate the GovCloud boundary, validate FIPS-validated crypto in practice, and test the kind of segmented CUI enclaves that primes are pushing down to their subs. We’ve worked alongside MSPs serving manufacturers, R&D shops, and IT contractors, all working toward Level 2.

Built for the MSPs and vCISOs serving the DIB

Most CMMC-bound clients can’t afford the kind of testing the big consultancies pitch them. We give MSPs and vCISOs a way to deliver real, manual, defensible penetration testing at a price the SMB defense supplier can absorb. White-labeled reports, channel-only delivery, no surprises.