Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1411055
8 PCB007 MAGAZINE I SEPTEMBER 2021 Nolan's Notes by Nolan Johnson, I-CONNECT007 Streamlining Your Processes It's late August 2021 as I write this column. Streamlining business processes has been the focus of this issue all summer. In front of me, however, my screen is full of coverage from the recent White House meeting between the U.S. President and major tech company senior executives discussing cybersecurity. President Biden is quoted, "e reality is, most of our critical infrastruc- ture is owned and operated by the private sector, and the federal government can't meet this challenge alone." Multiple sources re- port that Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, has re- sponded to the meet- ing with plans to im- prove the security of their global supply chain. e idea seems to be to encourage (drive) wide- spread adoption of stronger se- curity protocols. Apple's supply chain is gigantic; some reports state that there are more than 9,000 suppliers to Apple in the U.S. alone. Chances are good that many of our readers will be considered part of that sup- ply chain. And that's not counting the supply chains for Microso, Alphabet (Google), and Amazon. I find Amazon particularly interesting, given that the Amazon subsidiary, Amazon Web Ser- vices, provides a significant amount of the in- dustrial cloud computing services [1] . Microso, Google, and IBM round out the global top five. Clearly, primary responsibility for cloud-based data security resides with these companies. Furthermore, it seems that about 500,000 cybersecurity jobs remain unfilled in the U.S. economy. Not all these jobs are with the cloud services companies; many are on the manufacturer's staff, which is where they should be, espe- cially if your company does ITAR work. Enter the Cybersecuri- ty Maturity Model Cer- tification (CMMC). Ac- cording to the U.S. De- partment of Defense (DoD), the CMMC will verify that companies in the Defense Industri- al Base (DIB) have appro- priate cybersecurity prac- tices and processes in place to protect sensitive governmental information within unclassified corporate networks [2] . • e CMMC will review and combine various cybersecurity standards and best practices and map these controls and processes across several maturity levels that range from basic cyber hygiene to advanced. For a given CMMC level, the associated controls and processes, when implemented, will reduce risk against a specific set of cyber threats.