Client Profile

A fast-scaling biotech research company with $1.2B in funding, collaborating with U.S. government agencies and universities on advanced biomedical projects.

Challenge

The company was expanding globally but lacked a formal cybersecurity governance framework. During a partner audit, they were flagged for not aligning with NIST CSF and NSM-33 requirements for federally funded R&D, especially in areas of access controls, supply chain risk, and incident response planning. Without remediation, they risked losing eligibility for federal research grants.

Solution

STIG established a comprehensive cybersecurity governance program:

• NIST CSF 2.0 Alignment: Conducted a full gap analysis and mapped existing controls to the five NIST functions (Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, Recover).
• NSM-33 Compliance: Built a Research Security Program to meet requirements, including insider threat protection, export control compliance, and data integrity safeguards.
• Governance Board: Established a Cybersecurity Oversight Committee reporting to the board of directors.
• Continuous Monitoring: Deployed automated dashboards for compliance reporting and real-time metrics.

Results

• Passed government audit with zero critical findings.
• Retained $150M in annual federal funding eligibility.
• Improved vendor risk visibility across 300+ suppliers.
• Achieved a repeatable governance framework that now scales across new research projects.