Right from big guns to big data, the US Navy has left no stone unturned in leveraging ground-breaking technologies to augment its capabilities over the years. But the more they grew reliant on emerging technologies like IoT based sensors and AI to maintain equipment on ships, optimize supplier logistics, advocate autonomous navigation, or improve the accuracy of weapons—the more they became prone to cyber-attacks. Although the US Navy can surely get the best of cyber security services at their disposal, there remains a catch. Staying compliant with all the accreditation processes in an ever-evolving regulatory guidelines landscape becomes a momentous task for the navy officials. Hence, the situation calls for an expert intervention by an able partner that can help secure their ‘top-secret’ information and intellectual properties—all the while remaining compliant with the latest regulatory requirements.

Rising to the occasion, Cask Government Services, also known as Cask, comes as an esteemed consulting organization offering a host of consulting services to acquisition, system, and technology leaders in the Navy and Marine Corps who require support to ensure compliance, and maintain continuous technological transformation.“Our practitioners draw upon deep functional expertise while working in small teams to serve as resources to our clients throughout the entire lifecycle of a project—right from the cradle to the grave,” states Kate Ehrle, president of Cask. Often referring themselves as ‘Small Giants’, the brilliant group of experts at Cask take a customized approach to digital transformation, and help secure Navy and Marine Corps’ services in the cloud and meet its strategic security objectives by continually managing risk.“At Cask, we pride ourselves of being privy to the latest technological trends to integrate them into our customer’s projects, thereby helping them enhance their systems by leveraging the topmost standards for cyber security,” remarks Brian Stack, executive vice president of strategy at Cask.

Whenever cyber security comes into play it goes without saying that compliance comes quite inevitably into the picture. Unlike limiting the domain of ‘compliance as a service’ to performing assessments on the customer’s cyber situation, Cask’s ‘compliance as a service’ enables real time compliance that includes a continuous monitoring dashboard. Enterprise assets are mapped to compliance controls and eliminates the effort and cost associated with annual assessments. It also enables IT and Cybersecurity quality assurance providing operating expenditures (OpEx) instead of Capabilities Expenditures (CapEx) to provide clearer budgeting. At the same time, auto-generated compliance reports ondemand include SSPs and supporting artifacts, enabling automated RMF. “We conduct various types of assessments including RMF and NIST assessments to help customers understand how to implement these security solutions and stay abreast of all the regulatory requirements,” remarks Stacy High-Brinkley, vice president of compliance solutions and services at Cask, who also brings along 25 years of experience in working as an Information Security professional for the USMC and US Navy.

Alongside, Cask also assists customers in transitioning smoothly between acceptable, security controls. Since RMF, the latest security control framework launched by DoD A&A (Assessment and Authorization Process) is known for being applicable throughout the entire federal enterprise and allowing greater interconnectivity between agencies, Cask has helped clients shift to RMF controls from pre-existing DIACAP (Defense Information Assurance Certification and Accreditation Process).

In addition to their outstanding quality of services, Cask’s open and flexible work culture makes it stand apart in a crowd of cyber security solution providers. Especially in the fallout of the pandemic where countless companies scrambled to shift online in a very short span of time, it was Cask’s flexibility to function as a mobile workforce that empowered them to swiftly head towards virtualization. As an organization highlighting employee wellness as one of its core tenets, Cask has been conducting employee surveys every week along with interactive wellness programs to safeguard its employee’s mental health throughout this period. Building on their technological proficiency and emphasis on employee stability and wellness, the company is ready to augment their competencies and grow further in the near future—helping Navy and Marine Corps protect the interests of the nation, while being ever-compliant to an environment of rapidly changing regulatory guidelines.