CMMC Secure "Specialized Assets"
Learn effective strategies for CMMC compliance with specialized assets in critical environments, including segmentation, monitoring, and risk mitigation.
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CMMC Secure "Specialized Assets": Strategy and Implementation for Critical Environments
The Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) has become a non-negotiable aspect of the defense industrial base. At its core, CMMC seeks to enforce standardized cybersecurity best practices, with a pronounced focus on Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI). Among its provisions, the requirements for Specialized Assets—the difficult “edge cases” in OT, ICS, medical, laboratory, and networked critical environments—present some of the thorniest practical dilemmas for security architects, CISOs, and network operators alike.
This article addresses the real-world complexities of CMMC’s requirements on specialized assets. We'll look deeply at their technical challenges, practical approaches for compliance without operational disruption, and why both IT and OT domains need differentiated—but integrated—security logic.
Defining “Specialized Assets”: Practical and Regulatory Context
CMMC deliberately distinguishes assets like traditional workstations/servers from “Specialized Assets,” which include:
Operational Technology: PLCs, DCS, SCADA, industrial robots
Laboratory or Medical Devices: MRI equipment, gas chromatographs, PCR analyzers
IoT/IIoT: Smart meters, sensors, embedded controllers
Voice/Video Systems: VTC bridges, proprietary PBX, legacy telephony
Network Appliances: Firewalls, switches, protocol gateways
Historically, these devices were never designed for rapid patching, centralized access control, or contemporary encryption. Many lack fundamental security controls—perhaps running legacy embedded OSs like VxWorks or Windows CE whose support sunsetted years ago, intermixed with newer Linux-based devices.
Why Were They Exempt?
The “air gap” mentality reigned for decades in industrial settings. OT and medical device vendors justified minimalism: patching platforms like a SCADA system was often disruptive, and sometimes impossible due to warranty implications or lack of vendor tooling. The result: environments with critical legacy assets that cannot comply with conventional IT security mandates.
Navigating CMMC’s Specialized Asset Requirements
Current CMMC guidance (particularly at Levels 2 and 3) acknowledges these constraints. Rather than mandating impossible retrofits, it adopts the doctrine of “Identified, Isolated, and Monitored.” Still, there’s limited official granularity; interpretation is required.
Asset Identification: Build and maintain a living inventory of all specialized assets, including firmware/OS/software versioning, communication protocols, and interface dependencies.
Isolation: Logical/physical network segmentation. Application-layer filtering if possible. No “flat” IP space spanning both IT assets and specialized OT assets.
Monitoring & Compensating Controls: Deep packet inspection, anomaly-based IDS, strict access control at boundary interfaces, and user behavior analytics specific to protocol/model variances.
Most practitioners agree: If your compensating controls are not documented and periodically revalidated, you have brittle compliance and operational risk.
Composing an Effective Security Architecture for Specialized Assets
1. Addressing Network Architecture: Segmentation and Zoning
Let’s be specific: VLANs are a start, but not a substitute for true architectural segmentation. The Purdue Model for ICS (originated in the 1990s, see source [1]) remains a sensible starting point:
Level 0-1: Sensors/actuators and field devices
Level 2: Control systems
Level 3: Site operations
Level 4-5: Enterprise and external networks
Deploy firewalls or industrial demilitarized zones (IDMZs) at boundaries, and do not rely on “soft” boundaries—such as ACLs alone. Use jump hosts or dedicated proxies for remote access and management tasks. Where possible, employ unidirectional gateways (data diodes) for one-way data flows.
2. Authentication and Access: Broken by Design?
Most legacy PLCs and medical devices lack native support for modern AAA (Authentication, Authorization, Accounting). Don’t shoehorn endpoint agents or expect device-native support for LDAP, RADIUS, or MFA. Centralize access via management workstations (“bastion hosts”) within the isolated environment. Hard-enforce operational controls—such as “two-person rule” for all configuration activities—and use out-of-band event triggers (badges, process tickets) for audit trails.
3. Logging and Monitoring: What’s Realistically Possible?
Syslog, SNMPv3 traps, or similarly secure telemetry are rarely available directly from specialized assets. Instead:
Monitor north-south and east-west traffic at key chokepoints, rather than endpoint logs
Use signature- and anomaly-based IDS/IPS tools, tuned for industrial protocol deviations (e.g., Modbus, DNP3, BACnet, HL7)
Correlate events with physical-world state: did a process alarm trigger simultaneously with unexpected network flows?
Passive network forensics have proven vital in incidents (see Stuxnet, 2010, which notably leveraged unmonitored process communications for covert action [2]).
IT/OT Collaboration: Bridging Institutional Silos
This is not a technology problem alone. For decades, IT teams saw themselves as stewards of servers and endpoints; OT managed process safety, system uptime, and plant continuity. The result is a cultural chasm, exacerbated by risk aversion on both sides.
Trust but clarify: Develop joint incident response playbooks bridging IT and OT. There are moments where a factory floor must take priority—but blind spots erode compliance.
Adopt “zone liaison” roles: Each side needs at least one person who speaks both dialects fluently.
Document the exceptions: Asset exceptions should be catalogued: why is remote patching unsupported? What compensating controls exist? This is gold for future accreditation (and, in a real incident, forensics).
Vendor Dependency and Third-Party Risk
It’s common for specialized assets to be supported directly (or indirectly) by vendors—who may require VPN access, proprietary tunneling (e.g., vendor-controlled TeamViewer), or even keystroke-level remote diagnostics. This is a perennial weak point.
Enforce jump box access for all remote parties. Make use of time-limited and role-based access controls.
Encrypt and log all sessions. If a vendor cannot or will not support secure access, escalate to procurement and risk management; document thoroughly as part of CMMC compliance.
Practical Steps to Achieve CMMC Compliance with Specialized Assets
Discovery is foundational: Use port scans (with extreme caution), banner grabbing, and passive monitoring to inventory specialized assets. Cross-reference with plant/biomed records—never trust network discovery alone.
Implement architectural controls: Segmentation, chokepoints, managed remote access, and physical controls (locked cabinets, badge readers).
Patching policy realism: Some devices will remain unpatched by necessity. Your policy needs to clearly enumerate affected assets and compensating controls.
Continuous monitoring: Traffic analysis, event correlation, and operational state monitoring are not optional—this is where you catch advanced threat activity.
Documentation and justification: For all exceptions, prepare detailed technical rationale, diagrams, and manager sign-off. CMMC auditors want to see process, not just outcome.
Conclusion: The Ongoing Tension Between Security, Safety, and Operations
CMMC did not invent the challenge of securing specialized assets—but it compels organizations to face the problem with discipline, documentation, and realistic mitigation rather than “prayer-based cybersecurity.” Specialized assets are here to stay (if anything, IIOT and smart infrastructure make them more numerous); therefore, robust network architecture, joint IT/OT governance, and technical humility are the only way forward.
As Alan Turing allegedly said, “We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done.” CMMC compliance for specialized assets is not about complete control, but about due diligence and real management of irreducible risk—warts and all.
[1] Isaak, J. (1990s). The Purdue Enterprise Reference Architecture (PERA) – Reference for industrial system layering.
[2] Langner, R. (2011). "Stuxnet: Dissecting a Cyberwarfare Weapon." IEEE Security & Privacy.
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