Strategy and Solutions
Our client was a global manufacturer supplying specialized components to aerospace and defense contractors. With facilities across North America and Europe, the company managed complex supply chains involving hundreds of vendors. Following a series of supply chain–related security incidents in their ecosystem, leadership recognized the urgent need to strengthen cybersecurity resilience. The company also wanted to prepare for Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC), a requirement for U.S. defense suppliers.
The engagement began against a backdrop of several pressing concerns:
The manufacturer had no formal cybersecurity framework. Policies existed but were fragmented and inconsistent. IT practices were largely ad hoc, dependent on individual teams and local plant-level decisions.
Zymr’s initial evaluation revealed major weaknesses:
Defense contractors had begun requiring suppliers to demonstrate cybersecurity maturity aligned with NIST CSF and CMMC. The client risked losing high-value contracts if they could not prove readiness.
The company aimed to achieve measurable improvement in under 12 months to maintain eligibility for defense work. With no existing framework, this was an ambitious timeline.
In short, the company faced the dual challenge of closing immediate security gaps while laying a foundation for long-term compliance.
Zymr helped the client elevate its security maturity from fragmented and reactive to structured and proactive. By aligning with NIST CSF, the manufacturer not only addressed immediate security gaps but also positioned itself to meet CMMC requirements and retain strategic defense contracts. For leadership, the transformation demonstrated that cybersecurity was no longer a compliance burden but a competitive differentiator.
Within eight months, the client’s cybersecurity maturity improved from 2.1 to 4.2, a significant shift from reactive practices to consistent, documented processes across all NIST CSF domains.
This outcome gave the manufacturer not just compliance readiness but a robust, proactive security posture aligned with industry demands.
Future-Readiness: With NIST CSF embedded, the company could pursue ISO 27001 certification with minimal additional effort.
Zymr designed a phased NIST CSF implementation program, combining maturity assessment, remediation, and governance.
We started with a full NIST CSF maturity evaluation across the five domains: Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, and Recover. The client’s average score was 2.1 (Initial), indicating inconsistent, undocumented practices. The assessment produced a detailed scorecard highlighting 90+ individual controls and their current maturity levels.
Working with leadership, we created a risk-based remediation roadmap. Critical areas—asset inventory, access control, and incident response, were prioritized. Longer-term improvements, such as supply chain risk management, were staged for later phases. This roadmap included estimated costs, staffing needs, and timelines.
Zymr embedded consultants alongside the client’s IT and security teams to deploy and operationalize controls:
Each control was documented and aligned with NIST CSF criteria, creating a clear audit trail.
To sustain improvements, Zymr:
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