Understanding DoD Supply Chain Cybersecurity Requirements

The Totem Journey:

We started our government contracting journey in 2015 after our parent company, Haight Bey & Associates was awarded a multi-million-dollar U.S. Air Force tactical weapons support contract. One portion of the contract provided cybersecurity on ruggedized deployable laptops. CEO Aliahu "Alli" Bey reached out to a former business colleague, Adam Austin, owner of a cybersecurity company in Pennsylvania.  As a cybersecurity expert, Mr. Austin’s experience and involvement was a no-brainer and he was promptly brought on as a partner.

In 2017, adherence to NIST 800-171 requirements, which state that small businesses (like ours) must comply with more than 300 cyber-requirements and controls that the large Prime Contractors adhere to (DFARS 252.204-7012). Mr. Austin spent nearly a year combing through hundreds and hundreds of requirements and created an early version of what we now call Totem’s Cybersecurity Planning Tool, a revolutionary organizational software that meshes perfectly with cybersecurity and compliance requirements for our existing DoD contracts…and yours as well. 

About Adam Austin:

Adam Austin is the Cybersecurity Lead at Totem.Tech, a minority veteran-owned Prime DoD contractor.  Mr. Austin has a decade of experience securing classified, unclassified, and HIPAA-environment US Government IT systems, having worked with NASA, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS), and all branches of the Department of Defense.  Adam holds a Master's in Information Assurance from Capitol Technology University, and is an ISACA Certified Information Security Manager (CISM) and Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA).  Adam's goal is to leverage his experience and education to help small businesses in regulatory environments implement affordable, compliant, risk-based cybersecurity programs.