Cyber AB town hall convenes amid CMMC phase two pause
The Cyber AB called the pause surprising; Tuesday's town hall is its first chance to argue the assessment infrastructure it accredited is worth preserving.
TL;DR
The Cyber AB holds its July town hall Tuesday, the first public forum since the Pentagon paused CMMC phase two on July 13. CEO Matthew Travis called the decision "surprising and disappointing" and pledged cooperation with the newly formed CMMC Reform Task Force. The pause halts the planned November rollout of third-party assessment requirements in solicitations and caught C3PAOs off guard. They'd spent years building the assessment ecosystem.
The Cyber AB's town hall lands at an awkward moment. The Pentagon announced the phase two pause on July 13 and stood up a CMMC Reform Task Force alongside a request for information. The accreditation body spent years building the C3PAO ecosystem for the third-party assessments phase two would require. It didn't get advance input on the decision. CEO Matthew Travis's July 15 statement called the pause a surprise and described the program as "indispensable," but the tone was cooperation: "We are standing by to cooperate with the CMMC Reform Task Force."
The pause is a 60-day review. Phase two was slated to begin inserting CMMC Level 2 third-party assessment requirements into solicitations starting November 10. That's now on hold. Former Pentagon CMMC leaders Stacy Bostjanick and Katie Arrington have encouraged stakeholders to submit comments to the RFI. The Cyber AB, the Small Business Administration, and defense industry trade groups are among those weighing in.
Separately, White House National Quantum Coordination Office director Brad Blakestad discusses the future of U.S. quantum technology in a Wednesday webinar co-hosted by USTelecom and Inside Cybersecurity. Two White House executive orders last month addressed post-quantum cryptography and the broader quantum ecosystem; OMB issued a June 26 memo directing agency PQC implementation.
At the 930gov summit Tuesday, OMB's Nick Polk and the FBI's Todd Hemmen open the cybersecurity track with a discussion on AI-enabled cyber attacks. NIST's Apostol Vassilev presents on securing agentic AI systems. MITRE's Julie Snyder provides an update on the NIST Cyber AI Profile, and GAO's Marisol Cruz Cain covers AI-enabled privacy risks.
On Capitol Hill, the Senate Commerce Committee holds a Thursday hearing on AI's impact on communication networks, with USTelecom's Jonathan Spalter and Cisco's Bob Everson among the witnesses. CSIS hosts a Wednesday 6G event featuring NTIA Administrator Arielle Roth and Deputy Commerce Secretary Paul Dabbar.
Published ·Deep Fathom