Cybersecurity and Cloud Services for Federal Missions

Carter Group helps organizations establish, assess, and continuously improve their cybersecurity programs. Our services support the full security lifecycle, from governance and risk identification through authorization, remediation, and executive reporting.

Our risk management capabilities include:

• Governance, risk, and compliance support
• Risk Management Framework implementation
• Information System Security Officer support
• System security plan development and maintenance
• Cybersecurity program assessments
• Security policy and procedure development
• Risk registers and risk acceptance documentation
• Security metrics, dashboards, and executive reporting

Our teams are experienced in applying frameworks and requirements such as FISMA, the NIST Risk Management Framework, NIST SP 800-53, the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, OMB guidance, and agency-specific security policies.

We guide systems through assessment and authorization from the first gap analysis to a signed Authority to Operate, and keep the package defensible once it is granted.

Our assessment and authorization capabilities include:

• Security assessment and authorization support
• Authority to Operate package development
• Security control assessments
• Security assessment plans and reports
• Gap analysis against NIST SP 800-53 baselines
• Audit readiness and evidence management
• Independent verification and validation
• Assessor and auditor coordination

We prepare the documentation, evidence, and stakeholder briefings assessors expect, so authorization decisions are made on a complete and accurate package.

We help protect the information and systems your mission depends on, applying safeguards proportionate to the sensitivity of the data and the risk your organization is prepared to carry.

Our information protection capabilities include:

• Data protection and information safeguarding strategy
• Privacy and security documentation
• Privacy impact and threshold assessments
• Identity, credential, and access management support
• Data classification and handling procedures
• Encryption and key management guidance
• Insider threat and data loss prevention planning
• Incident response planning and coordination

Our approach aligns protection measures with federal privacy and security requirements while keeping day-to-day operations workable for the people who use the systems.

An authorization is only as good as the monitoring behind it. We help you keep security posture current, tracked, and reportable in the long stretch between assessment cycles.

Our continuous monitoring capabilities include:

• Continuous monitoring program development
• Ongoing security control assessments
• Vulnerability management and remediation tracking
• Plan of Action and Milestones management
• Scan result analysis and false positive validation
• Configuration and change management support
• Security status reporting and dashboards
• Executive and stakeholder briefings

We give program leadership a clear, current picture of open risk and the work underway to close it — the reporting that keeps an authorization from going stale.

Carter Group supports organizations as they modernize applications, infrastructure, security practices, and service delivery models. We help clients evaluate technology options, manage implementation risks, and maintain security and compliance throughout the modernization lifecycle.

Our cloud and modernization capabilities include:

• Cloud readiness assessments
• Cloud governance
• Cloud security architecture support
• Migration planning
• FedRAMP alignment and support
• Infrastructure modernization planning
• Application modernization support
• DevSecOps governance and coordination
• Modernization roadmap development

We emphasize secure, scalable, and sustainable solutions that align technology investments with mission and business priorities.

Disruption is inevitable, and your organization has to keep operating through it. We help you plan, document, test, and improve the contingency and recovery procedures that keep the mission running during a crisis.

Our contingency and recovery capabilities include:

• Contingency planning and documentation
• Information system contingency plans
• Business impact analysis
• Disaster recovery planning
• Continuity of operations support
• Tabletop exercises and plan testing
• Recovery time and recovery point objective analysis
• After action reviews and corrective action tracking

Plans are written to be used, not filed. We exercise them with your team so the procedures hold up when they are actually needed.