CMMC RA.L2-3.11.1: Periodic Risk Assessments for CUI Protection
CMMC RA.L2-3.11.1 requires organizations to periodically assess risks to operations, assets, and individuals from systems handling CUI. This foundational control ensures you understand threats to your defense industrial base mission before they become incidents. GRCWatch helps defense contractors automate risk assessment workflows and maintain compliance audit readiness.
What this means
This control mandates regular, documented risk assessments that evaluate how your information systems—and their processing, storage, and transmission of Controlled Unclassified Information—could impact your organization's mission, reputation, and personnel. 'Periodically' means on a defined schedule (typically annually or per your risk management policy), not ad-hoc. You must consider organizational operations, assets (people and systems), and external reputation damage from system compromise or data loss.
How to comply
- 1.Establish a risk assessment schedule and document it in your security policy (recommend annual minimum, or per threat changes)
- 2.Define scope: identify all systems processing, storing, or transmitting CUI and the organizational functions they support
- 3.Conduct assessment covering threat identification, vulnerability analysis, and impact estimation for mission, assets, image, and individuals
- 4.Document findings in a risk register including likelihood, impact, and residual risk for each identified risk
- 5.Review and update risk assessments whenever systems change, threats evolve, or annually per policy
- 6.Present results to leadership and use findings to inform remediation and security investment decisions
Evidence auditors look for
- Documented risk assessment policy defining assessment frequency and scope
- Completed risk assessment reports with threat, vulnerability, and impact analysis
- Risk register tracking identified risks, owners, mitigation status, and residual risk ratings
- Evidence of risk assessment updates following system changes or annual review cycles
- Management sign-off on risk assessment findings and remediation prioritization
- System inventory mapping CUI systems to organizational functions and assets at risk
Frequently asked questions
When will FAQs be available?
The FAQ for this control is currently being prepared.
GRCWatch's risk assessment module automates threat and vulnerability data aggregation from your security tools, generates customizable assessment templates mapped to CMMC scope, and maintains audit-ready documentation—cutting assessment time from weeks to days while ensuring complete organizational coverage.
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