We measure where you stand against your framework and document it.
Serving federal and enterprise clients since 1988.
Cybersecurity compliance frameworks assessed independently.
Capability Maturity Model Integration Level 3, independently appraised.
ISO 27001:2022 · ISO 9001:2015 · ISO 20000-1:2018
Twelve frameworks across federal, commercial, and voluntary categories. Independent assessment for each.
A three-step process that produces the documentation auditors, contracting officers, and regulators expect to see.
Define the assessment boundary, applicable controls, and testing methodology. Confirm in-scope systems, data flows, and the framework being measured against.
Independent testing of every applicable control. Manual verification of evidence beyond automated scanning. Findings logged with traceable references.
Final report with executive summary, control findings, risk ratings, and prioritized remediation. The documentation regulators and contracting officers expect to see.
A single, defensible report that documents your compliance posture for the controls, regulators, and contracting officers who will read it.
Every TestPros assessment produces the same documentation an auditor, contracting officer, or regulator would expect to see. Six sections, evidence-linked throughout.
High-level findings, overall compliance posture, and the three or four remediation priorities that matter most.
Documented assessment boundary, control set, sampling approach, and testing methodology. Defends the assessment if questioned later.
Compliance status for every applicable control with the evidence reviewed, gaps identified, and verification approach documented.
Severity classification for each gap, mapped to business impact and regulatory exposure. Lets leadership prioritize without guessing.
Specific corrective actions for each gap, prioritized by risk, with effort estimates that translate directly into a project plan.
Evidence references, control-mapping tables, and supporting appendices. The documentation auditors and contracting officers expect to see.
TestPros is itself independently appraised and certified across four quality frameworks. The same scrutiny we apply to your assessments is applied to our own organization.
Capability Maturity Model Integration appraisal verifying defined, managed, and standardized processes across service delivery.
Information Security Management System certification covering risk-based controls, access management, and information protection.
Quality Management System certification covering process consistency, customer focus, and continuous improvement.
IT Service Management System certification covering service delivery, incident management, and continual improvement.
The structural difference that determines whether your compliance documentation will hold up under scrutiny from auditors, contracting officers, and regulators.
No financial stake in the outcome
Structural conflict of interest
CMMC requires a C3PAO. FedRAMP requires an independent 3PAO. PCI DSS requires an independent QSA. SOC 2 requires a CPA with no prior relationship to the systems audited. These frameworks have built independence into their requirements for structural reasons, not personal ones.
That is how the U.S. Department of Defense formally classifies contractor self-assessments. A self-generated score is not independent verification of compliance.
What makes a compliance assessment credible to auditors, contracting officers, and regulators is not the tools used. It is who used them.
TestPros does not implement security controls or sell scanning software. Every assessment begins with no commercial stake in the outcome.
Automated tools and AI inform the assessment. Certified assessors manually verify every finding against the actual control evidence.
Every finding is reproducible and traces to specific control evidence. Documentation holds up when contracting officers or regulators ask hard questions.
Cybersecurity compliance services are independent assessments that verify an organization's security controls against framework requirements like NIST 800-171, CMMC, FedRAMP, PCI DSS, or SOC 2. The deliverable is documented evidence of compliance status, identified gaps, and remediation guidance that satisfies auditors, contracting officers, and regulators.
Independent testing of security controls against the specific framework your contracts, customers, or regulators require.
Defensible, evidence-linked findings that hold up under scrutiny from auditors, contracting officers, and DCAA reviewers.
Specific, prioritized actions to close gaps and reach the compliance posture your contracts or regulations require.
Different framework requirements. The same underlying need for credible compliance documentation.
Companies handling Controlled Unclassified Information on Department of Defense contracts, subject to DFARS 252.204-7012 and the rolling CMMC requirement.
Federal agencies and the contractors operating their information systems, required to maintain a security program based on NIST controls under FISMA.
SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS providers selling to federal agencies, who cannot list on the FedRAMP Marketplace without independent authorization.
Covered entities and business associates handling electronic protected health information under the HIPAA Security Rule.
Merchants, payment processors, and service providers handling cardholder data, subject to assessment by a Qualified Security Assessor.
SaaS providers, cloud services, and outsourced functions whose customers require third-party assurance over their systems and controls.
Share your framework, timeline, or specific challenge. A TestPros assessor will respond within one business day with a scoped engagement plan.
Every DoD contract handling Controlled Unclassified Information requires NIST SP 800-171 compliance with SPRS scores submitted to the Supplier Performance Risk System. Self-reported scores without defensible documentation create growing contract risk as audit scrutiny increases.
TestPros has served federal government and enterprise clients since 1988. The firm holds no commercial stake in the controls being assessed, sells no software products being tested as compliant, and maintains no ongoing services revenue from the systems under review. The result is documentation contracting officers, DCAA auditors, and DoD assessors recognize on sight.
A single, defensible report that documents your compliance posture for the controls, regulators, and contracting officers who will read it.
Every TestPros assessment produces the same documentation an auditor, contracting officer, or regulator would expect to see. Six sections, evidence-linked throughout.
High-level findings, overall compliance posture, and the three or four remediation priorities that matter most.
Documented assessment boundary, control set, sampling approach, and testing methodology. Defends the assessment if questioned later.
Compliance status for every applicable control with the evidence reviewed, gaps identified, and verification approach documented.
Severity classification for each gap, mapped to business impact and regulatory exposure. Lets leadership prioritize without guessing.
Specific corrective actions for each gap, prioritized by risk, with effort estimates that translate directly into a project plan.
Evidence references, control-mapping tables, and supporting appendices. The documentation auditors and contracting officers expect to see.
Common questions from federal contractors, government agencies, and enterprise organizations evaluating independent cybersecurity compliance assessment.
NIST SP 800-171 is the underlying control set: 110 security controls that federal contractors handling Controlled Unclassified Information must implement under DFARS 252.204-7012. CMMC is the certification framework that verifies compliance with those controls. CMMC Level 2 maps directly to the NIST 800-171 control set, with the key difference being that CMMC requires assessment by a Certified Third-Party Assessment Organization (C3PAO) rather than the self-assessment that NIST 800-171 has historically allowed.
In short: NIST 800-171 is what you implement. CMMC is how it gets verified.
Yes. Under the CMMC Program Final Rule (32 CFR Part 170), CMMC Level 2 certification requires assessment by a Certified Third-Party Assessment Organization, known as a C3PAO. Self-assessments are not accepted for Level 2 certification on DoD contracts that require it. This is a deliberate change from the previous DFARS 252.204-7012 approach, which allowed self-reported SPRS scores.
TestPros provides independent readiness assessment against the full NIST 800-171 control set, which contractors use to prepare for and remediate gaps before engaging a C3PAO for formal certification.
The Supplier Performance Risk System (SPRS) score is a self-assessment score required from every DoD contractor handling Controlled Unclassified Information. Under DFARS 252.204-7012, contractors must submit a current SPRS score reflecting their compliance with NIST SP 800-171.
The score matters because the Department of Defense can request the underlying assessment documentation at any time, and contracting decisions increasingly factor in SPRS posture. A contractor whose self-reported score cannot be defended with documentation is at risk of contract action.
An independent assessment from TestPros produces a defensible SPRS score backed by the full documentation package. This includes the same control-by-control findings the DoD would expect to see if they audited the submission.
FISMA applies to federal agencies and their information systems. It requires agencies to implement and maintain a security program based on NIST SP 800-53 controls. Federal agencies and their direct contractors fall under FISMA.
FedRAMP applies to cloud service providers selling to federal agencies. It is a standardized authorization program that uses NIST SP 800-53 controls as the underlying baseline but adds specific assessment requirements, continuous monitoring, and a centralized authorization process. A cloud service provider cannot sell to federal agencies without FedRAMP authorization listed on the FedRAMP Marketplace.
The two frameworks share underlying controls but apply to different audiences and follow different authorization paths.
The frameworks that apply depend on the type of work and the data involved:
Defense contractors handling CUI: NIST SP 800-171 under DFARS 252.204-7012, with CMMC Level 2 certification rolling into active contracts. Federal agencies and their systems: NIST SP 800-53 under FISMA. Cloud service providers selling to federal agencies: FedRAMP authorization. Contractors building or operating federal information systems: ATO package documentation. Contractors handling CUI more broadly: GSA CUI program requirements.
Most contractors face more than one of these simultaneously. TestPros provides independent assessment across all of them.
A readiness assessment evaluates current compliance posture against a framework's control set and produces a gap analysis. It is performed before formal certification to identify and remediate gaps. The deliverable is internal: a report the organization uses to prepare.
A formal compliance assessment is the official evaluation conducted by an authorized certifying body: a C3PAO for CMMC, a 3PAO for FedRAMP, a QSA for PCI DSS, a CPA for SOC 2. The deliverable is the formal certification or attestation the organization presents to customers, contracting officers, or regulators.
TestPros conducts readiness assessments. The two work together: the readiness assessment prevents costly surprises during formal certification, and the formal certification produces the official deliverable. Organizations that arrive at a formal assessment with a prior independent readiness assessment on record are better prepared and remediate faster.
A TestPros assessment includes scoping the assessment boundary, conducting a gap analysis against every applicable control, independent testing of technical and administrative controls, and producing a scored findings report. The report covers compliance status per control, risk ratings for identified gaps, and specific remediation guidance for each finding.
For frameworks where TestPros provides the full assessment deliverable (NIST 800-171, NIST 800-53), the report is the primary documentation. For frameworks where a formal certifier produces the final certification (CMMC, FedRAMP, PCI DSS, SOC 2), the TestPros assessment serves as the readiness evaluation that the organization brings to their C3PAO, 3PAO, QSA, or CPA.
Assessment duration depends on the framework, the size of the assessment boundary, and the complexity of the environment. A typical NIST 800-171 readiness assessment for a mid-sized federal contractor takes four to eight weeks from kickoff to final report. CMMC Level 2 readiness assessments fall in a similar range. FedRAMP readiness assessments and full FedRAMP authorization timelines are significantly longer, often six months or more, because of the depth of control testing and documentation required.
Scoping the engagement is the first step. TestPros provides a specific timeline estimate after reviewing the systems in scope, the applicable controls, and the documentation that already exists.
Assessment frequency depends on the framework. CMMC Level 2 certifications are valid for three years, with annual affirmation required. SOC 2 reports are typically reviewed annually. PCI DSS assessments are annual. NIST 800-171 SPRS scores must reflect current posture, meaning material changes to the environment trigger reassessment.
Beyond the formal frequency, organizations benefit from interim assessments when significant changes occur. Examples include new systems brought into scope, mergers or acquisitions affecting the assessment boundary, major changes to security controls, or new contractual requirements. An interim independent assessment catches drift before it surfaces in a formal certification.
They can, but the resulting assessment carries less weight than one produced by an independent third party. The conflict of interest is structural: a firm that built or implemented the controls being assessed has an incentive, however unintentional, to interpret ambiguous control evidence favorably and to find the implementation satisfactory. Contracting officers, auditors, and regulators recognize this and weigh independent assessments more credibly.
This is exactly why CMMC requires a C3PAO that does not implement, FedRAMP requires an independent 3PAO, and PCI DSS requires an independent QSA. The most rigorous compliance frameworks have built independence into their requirements for structural reasons.
TestPros does not implement cybersecurity controls. The assessment is independent of any implementation relationship.
A firm that sells security software and also offers compliance assessment services has a structural conflict when their own software is part of the environment being assessed. The firm has a commercial interest in the software performing well during assessment, which compromises the objectivity of the evaluation.
TestPros uses automated tools and AI as part of its testing methodology, but always conducts manual verification and does not sell the products being assessed. The independence applies in both directions: TestPros does not implement controls, and TestPros does not sell the software that gets tested. That separation is the source of the credibility that makes an independent assessment worth more than a consulting validation.
No. CMMC certification can only be issued by a Certified Third-Party Assessment Organization (C3PAO) authorized by the Cyber AB. TestPros is not a C3PAO. TestPros provides independent readiness assessment against the full NIST SP 800-171 control set, which contractors use to identify and remediate gaps before engaging a C3PAO for formal certification.
This sequence is the recommended approach: independent readiness assessment from TestPros to identify gaps, remediation of those gaps, then formal C3PAO assessment for certification. Organizations that engage a C3PAO without prior readiness assessment frequently encounter surprises during formal evaluation that delay or fail certification.
Tell us about your framework requirements, contract obligations, or audit timeline. We respond within one business day with a scoped engagement plan.
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