Tara M. Clapper is a content manager at Riverside Research.
Government agencies, defense contractors, and individuals concerned with system and device security experience compliance drag: the inability of security processes to keep pace with mission speed. The proliferation of AI in our systems, as well as our adversaries’ use of it, compounds this issue as agentic AI creates conditions for faster-than-human responses to security threats. AI developer, Anthropic, recently confirmed this issue while adding that the next generation of AI will cause a “watershed moment” for cybersecurity.
Government Security Requirements for Data Protection
The Department of War has instituted the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC), which increases protection of data and strengthens systems against increasingly complex cyber-attacks, including those initiated by AI. The CMMC has scheduled deadlines—repeatedly pushed back—as some defense contractors struggle to meet them and create secure processes. Meanwhile, agencies and specific contracts more stringently require CMMC compliance.
But the agentic AI problem remains: how can delayed CMMC compliance ensure security versus AI that fastidiously breaks down systems by rapidly deploying multiple automated agents? Being one step ahead in agentic AI development and ensuring CMMC compliance is part of the solution—but not everything.
Second Layer Security Per Device
In addition to system security compliant with CMMC, users can secure devices at the individual device level. With 97 percent of companies reporting security issues due to generative AI attacks, there’s an emphasis on training individuals in organizations to practice security measures and resist the social engineering designed to make them click on a dangerous link.
Because of these risks, government agencies, defense contractors, and private sector businesses have turned their attention to protecting devices on an individual basis. This is particularly relevant to users who take their devices off secure networks and use them at private residences, hotels, conferences, and public locations. In the past, enterprises would rely upon expensive and bloated virus detection and protection software. In a faster-moving security environment targeting individual devices, they now implement layers of security on each device. (They can do this with multiple VPN layers on an Enhanced Retransmission Device [ERD], for example.) These extra layers, combined with CMMC compliance, create a stronger security model.
The best defense involves systemwide protection, individual device protection, and an informed workforce.
With CMMC compliance and per-device security enabled, networks and devices can remain more secure as adversaries’ agentic AI deploys continual, evolving attacks and digital fence-testing. If you’re ready to use ERDs to take your mobile device security to the next level, CMMC Level 2 Certified Riverside Research is ready to help.