What You Need to Know About DFARS Compliance
In the event that you have a contract with the department of defense, you will be required to observe the defense federal acquisition regulation supplement clauses that are in the contracts. Defense federal acquisition regulation supplement which is an acronym for DFARS refers to asset of regulation that governs the way the Federal government gets its products. It is compulsory to observe the regulations failure to which can lead to early termination of contract. Contractors also need to follow the rules stated in the contract since whey they fail to do so, they may end up losing all their work. As much as DFARS clauses cover many regulations, one of the regulations that contractors need to ensure that they are observing is the one that takes care of cybersecurity standards. In a cyber-security clause, contractors need to implement the requirement identified in the national institute of security and technology special publication 800-171.
It is common to find that in the course of their contracts with the government, contractors tend to be in possession of non-classified information for which the federal government regulations need safeguarding. Though the unclassified information may seem of less importance to the contractors, protection of such information is vital for national security concerns. For instance, the information may be private such that disclosing can end up damaging a person.
It is worth noting that not all cases involving non-compliance can lead to loss of contract, the contracting officer needs to determine the consequence of the action. In the event of contract that involve controlled unclassified information, attestation of compliance is a prerequisite for submitting bids for future DOD contracts. It is the role of small contractors who are subcontractors to the prime contractors to expect their primes to be vigilant on ensuring their compliance.
Smaller contractors tend to have a hard time finding a compliance strategy for the set rules. For instance, one of the rules require the contractor to have adequate security on the covered information systems.
In this section, we will take you through the factors to consider in getting federal government contract. One of the questions every contractor need to get answers when getting into a contract with the federal government is on the components that constitute adequate security. While looking for answers to the questions, contractors need to describe how they have implemented the special publications. Anytime a contractor wants to get into a contract with a federal government, they need to ensure that they have all the information they need to know about DFARS compliance which can be found in this post.