If you support the Defense Industrial Base, you already know the familiar response when CMMC comes up. Someone sighs. Someone asks if the deadline moved again (it hasn’t and CMMC language will now be appearing in new DOD contracts). Someone else wonders why compliance always feels like more paperwork.
It’s easy to treat CMMC as another administrative burden. Another requirement. Another disruption. But here’s the part people tend to forget: compliance frameworks like NIST 800-171 work. They reduce breach costs, protect entire industries, and prevent failures that would’ve carried enormous consequences.
So, attackers love when organizations treat compliance as an annoyance because it tells them exactly where the weak spots will be.
CyberSheath CEO Emil Sayegh explores this topic and more in a recent Forbes article.
Here’s what it means for you.
Compliance Frameworks Fix a Leadership Gap That Create Major Breaches
Before security frameworks existed, most organizations relied on assumptions. Leadership assumed IT had controls in place. IT assumed leadership understood the actual risk. And everyone assumed vendors were secure.
That gap contributed to some of the industry’s largest data breaches and cyberattacks.
And when an attacker breaches an organization, costs escalate by the day.
According to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report 2025, the global average cost of a data breach is $4.44M. But it hit a record high in the US, where the average cost surged to $10.22M.
Compliance lapses can trigger both security incidents and costly legal exposure.
Frameworks enforced through programs like CMMC close the gap by requiring verifiable, audit-ready evidence of implemented controls, not self-attestation. By November 2026, self-assessment scores alone won’t qualify companies handling or planning to handle CUI to bid for DOD contracts, putting them at risk of lost business and revenue.
Yet, despite the urgency, many contractors remain unprepared, relying on outdated self-assessments and delaying critical security measures.
The 2025 State of the DIB Report reveals just how wide the gap has grown between perceived readiness and actual compliance. While more than half of respondents believe they’re more than 80% prepared, only 1% believe they’re completely ready for CMMC Certification.
“Adversaries aren’t waiting, and neither is enforcement,” warns Emil.
Download the 2025 State of the DIB Report for an unfiltered look at the biggest gaps threatening compliance readiness and how you can protect your business and secure future contracts with the DOD.
Compliance Alone is Not Protection
Organizations that treat CMMC as the finish line put themselves at risk. Because attackers don’t care if you passed certification, they care about what you do next.
Compliance without operationalization and continuous improvement creates false confidence—a major risk for DIB contractors today: overconfidence.
“Attackers consistently exploit the weakest defenses, and too many contractors remain vulnerable, making themselves soft targets,” cautions Casey Lang, SVP of Compliance at CyberSheath.
The companies that win are the ones who treat compliance as the baseline.
CMMC Strengthens Organizations and Strengthens the Nation
Executives often see compliance as a cost. IT teams see checklists. And owners see daunting audits and corrective actions.
But CMMC isn’t just another requirement.
Compliance is a strategic obligation to “safeguard the innovation that drives the American economy, the intellectual property that fuels national competitiveness, and the operational continuity that keeps businesses running even when under attack,” says Emil.
The organizations that embrace CMMC compliance aren’t just staying contract-eligible, they’re playing an integral part to national security and resilience.
If you want clarity on what it’ll take to achieve CMMC compliance, we can help. Schedule a consultation to better understand the latest CMMC updates and develop a plan that keeps you audit-ready and eligible for the contracts that sustain your business.
This article was originally published on Forbes by Emil Sayegh on December 01, 2025: Still Complaining About Compliance? Attackers Love Hearing That