Small Contractors Struggle to Meet Cybersecurity Standards, Pentagon Finds

Small companies are struggling to meet the Pentagon’s newish network security rules, and even larger contractors aren’t doing as well as they think they are, a recent Department of Defense study has found. For one thing, big companies tend to give their smaller subcontractors a lot of data they don’t need, which then becomes vulnerable to foreign hackers.

In 2016, hackers stole sensitive data about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter from an Australian subcontractor. That and similar cases prompted the Pentagon to issue new rules for handling such information. Companies were supposed to have a plan for meeting these new standards by the start of 2018. What’s changed is that the Pentagon is starting to check whether self-certifying contractors are in fact complying with those rules.