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Acuity Essentials

An evidence-backed cybersecurity maturity assessment

Know where you stand and what to fix next. Acuity Essentials assesses your security controls against the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF 2.0), CIS Controls v8.1, or NIST 800-171 (CMMC 2.0), shows where your controls and tools leave gaps against the threats that target your industry, and builds a prioritized cybersecurity roadmap — without standing up a full operating model on day one. AI Governance inventories your AI systems against the NIST AI RMF.

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The Acuity Essentials dashboard, showing the framework assessment module with maturity and readiness scores, control gaps and a practical roadmap alongside the AI Governance module with an AI system inventory and NIST AI RMF risk assessment
Before and after: a desk buried under binders labelled Assessments, Reports and Evidence, loose spreadsheets and sticky notes reading “update spreadsheets”, “findings buried in tabs” and “what’s next?” — giving way to an Acuity Essentials result, with a 2.1 Developing maturity score, 62% moderate readiness, top gaps from multi-factor authentication to data protection, ranked recommendations, and a 0–30 / 31–90 / 91–180 day roadmap

Framework assessments

A structured, current view of your cybersecurity maturity and a practical path forward. Acuity Essentials runs guided assessments against the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF 2.0), CIS Controls v8.1 with Implementation Group mapping (IG1–IG3), or NIST 800-171 (CMMC 2.0). Assess the way that suits your team: answer guided questions, upload your policies and evidence for Acuity's AI to draft the assessment, or record a completed one. Acuity checks every answer against your evidence and scores each CSF 2.0 subcategory on a 1–5 maturity scale, with a rationale and how close you are to the next level.

  • Guided maturity assessment with clear maturity and Acuity scores
  • Gap identification at the control level
  • Prioritized recommendations from controls mapped to threats
  • A practical, ready-to-implement roadmap
  • Documents-first assessments: Acuity's AI drafts answers from your policies
  • Evidence-checked answers with targeted follow-up questions
  • NIST 800-171 (CMMC 2.0) assessments
A security leader reviewing framework coverage mapped against adversary techniques, showing where real gaps sit

Threat coverage and gap analysis

Maturity scores alone don't tell you whether you're protected against the attacks that matter. Acuity Essentials shows how well your security controls and tools cover the MITRE ATT&CK techniques used by the threat groups that target your industry, across the attack lifecycle. It then finds your gaps in three views and turns them into a prioritized cybersecurity roadmap with an executive summary.

  • Industry-weighted MITRE ATT&CK threat coverage
  • Tool gaps: the missing tool types that would add the most coverage
  • Maturity gaps: controls below targets pre-filled from industry benchmarks
  • Policy gaps: AI review of your documents against a 36-item evidence checklist
  • AI roadmaps linked back to the gaps they close
The AI Governance cycle circling a central shield built on the NIST AI Risk Management Framework: AI system inventory and classification covering chatbots, ML models and image recognition; risk assessment aligned to the NIST AI RMF; policy and control guidance; and ongoing monitoring with evidence support — with MITRE ATLAS noted beneath as supporting adversarial tactics and threat modeling

AI Governance

AI is moving faster than most security programs, and most are still handling it ad hoc. AI Governance helps you inventory AI systems, understand the risks they carry, apply appropriate controls and policies, and maintain ongoing oversight using the NIST AI Risk Management Framework. Pair it with our AI governance policy service for hands-on help.

  • AI system inventory and classification
  • Risk assessment aligned to the NIST AI RMF
  • Policy and control guidance
  • Ongoing monitoring and evidence support
AI governance services

Why Essentials

A lower-friction way in

Fast to value

A clean baseline and clear control-level priorities, ready for the next budget conversation.

Framework-aligned

The NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF 2.0), CIS Controls v8.1, and NIST 800-171 (CMMC 2.0) for security; the NIST AI RMF for AI risk.

Upgrades to Core

Same scoring model, so moving to the full operating system does not mean starting over.

Evidence-backed

Acuity's AI cites the evidence behind its findings, and nothing is scored on a claim your documents don't support.

Threat-informed

Priorities are weighted by the threat groups that actually target your industry, not a generic top-ten list.

Built for advisors

vCISOs, MSPs and security advisors can assess many clients from one platform, each isolated, with a client portal.

Try Acuity Essentials

See a guided assessment run against your own program.

Request a Demo