Wichita builds fuselages and business jets. The access model behind the drawings is the harder part.
Boeing closed its Spirit AeroSystems deal in December 2025, and thousands of Wichita badges started moving into a new parent's directory. Down the supply chain, machine shops that cut parts for defense programs face CMMC Level 2 requirements. Third-party assessments due November 2026 were suspended in July 2026.
- Identity Governance & AdministrationCybersecurity
- Privileged Access ManagementCybersecurity
- Governance, Risk & ComplianceCybersecurity
- OT & ICS SecurityCybersecurity
- Customer Identity (CIAM)Cybersecurity
- Data Governance & AccessData & Analytics
- Industrial IoTInternet of Things
In Wichita we work with aircraft and aerostructure manufacturers, their tiered suppliers and the university research labs that test for them.
The work is identity consolidation after acquisitions, access control for controlled unclassified and ITAR technical data, privileged access into plant networks, and data pipelines for quality and test records. Cohash is headquartered in Frisco, Texas, serves Kansas companies remotely and flies in for workshops and launches.
Cohash's only US office is in Frisco, Texas. Wichita work runs remotely, and we fly up for discovery on the plant floor, design workshops and cutover weekends. There is no Cohash office or team based in Kansas.
- rules
- Kansas breach notification, K.S.A. 50-7a02CMMC under DFARS 252.204-7021ITAR, 22 CFR 120.56
What's specific about Wichita
Each figure comes from a public source, linked on the card.
Manufacturing accounts for 53,400 of the Wichita metro's 318,200 nonfarm jobs, going by BLS data for September 2026 (preliminary). That is about one job in six.
source ↗ 02Boeing completed its acquisition of Spirit AeroSystems on 8 December 2025. Spirit's commercial and aftermarket operations in Wichita began integrating into Boeing, and Spirit Defense stays an independent supplier to the defense industry.
source ↗ 03The Greater Wichita Partnership lists aerospace first among the region's key industries, naming Boeing and Textron Aviation with its Cessna and Beechcraft brands. Koch Industries and Cargill Protein appear under energy and agriculture.
source ↗ 04 $350 millionWichita State University reported $350 million in aerospace engineering R&D from all funding sources in NSF's survey of 2024 expenditures, ranking first nationally. The university credits its National Institute for Aviation Research.
source ↗ 05An attack on 12 October 2023 shut down district court information systems in 104 of Kansas's 105 counties. Johnson County, on a standalone system, was spared. Court officials called it a sophisticated foreign cyberattack.
source ↗Who we work with in Wichita, and the rules they work under
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Commercial aerostructures after the Boeing–Spirit deal
Fuselage and wing-structure plants are now folding a supplier's directory, engineering tools and contractor accounts into a customer's identity stack. The risky period is the overlap, when people hold accounts in both and nobody knows which one is authoritative. We map every role to its new home, set a cutoff date for each legacy system and track the accounts that should have died at the cutover.
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Defense suppliers and CMMC
Tier 2 and tier 3 shops in the region handle drawings and specs marked CUI, often on a shared file server and a single admin account. For a Level 2 assessment you need to show who can see that data, with MFA and logs to prove it. We scope the enclave, rebuild group access around programs and put the admin account behind a vault.
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General aviation makers and service networks
Business-jet and turboprop makers run owner portals, parts ordering and service-center systems that mix customers, dealers and their own technicians. We separate customer identity from workforce identity, give service staff role-based access to aircraft records and set rules for what a dealer can see about another dealer's fleet.
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Test labs, quality and plant data
Certification testing and shop-floor inspection produce large records that engineers want in one place for analysis. The trouble is that some of it is export controlled. We build pipelines that tag ITAR and CUI data at ingest, so the warehouse enforces who reads it and an analytics project does not quietly widen access.
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Kansas breach notification, K.S.A. 50-7a02 ↗
Notice to affected Kansans goes out in the most expedient time possible and without unreasonable delay. A business holding data it doesn't own must tell the owner. Breaches hitting more than 1,000 consumers at one time also require notice to the nationwide consumer reporting agencies. The Attorney General enforces it, except for insurers.
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CMMC under DFARS 252.204-7021 ↗
The DFARS rule took effect 10 November 2025 with Phase 1 self-assessments, which stay in place. Phase 2, planned for 10 November 2026, would have added third-party Level 2 certification as a condition of award in applicable contracts, reaching many Wichita-area subcontractors. It was suspended on 13 July 2026 pending a review.
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ITAR, 22 CFR 120.56 (release) ↗
Letting a foreign person view technical data, by inspection or by oral or written exchange, counts as a release under ITAR, in the US or abroad. Handing over the access information that opens such data can need authorization too, so file permissions become an export-control question.
Most requested in Wichita
The services clients in Wichita ask us for most.
01Our shop got a flowdown asking for CMMC Level 2 certification. What should we do first?
Find out where CUI actually lives. In smaller shops it is usually in email, a shared drive and the CAM workstations next to the machines. Shrinking that footprint into a defined enclave makes the assessment smaller and cheaper. Then we close identity gaps such as shared logins, missing MFA and admin rights on everyday accounts.
02Can your offshore engineers work on our ITAR environment?
No foreign person should get access to ITAR technical data without authorization, and that includes ours. We plan the project so that work inside the controlled environment is done only by people cleared for it under your export compliance rules, and anything else is done without access to the data.
03We now report into a new parent company. How do we merge directories without stopping the line?
In stages. Plant-floor and engineering systems usually move last, after office apps, because a failed login at a work cell costs production time. We run both directories in parallel with a mapping table and a dated cutoff for each system.
04Does Kansas have a consumer privacy law like Texas or Colorado?
Not as of October 2026. Kansas relies on its breach notification statute, enforced by the Attorney General, plus federal and sector rules. If you sell to consumers in states with comprehensive laws, those states' rules still apply to their residents. Your counsel should confirm the current list.
05What did the 2023 Kansas courts attack teach local organizations?
Mostly that a shared system can take everyone down at once. Officials said 104 of 105 county court systems went offline and only Johnson County, on its own system, kept going. We look hard at shared admin paths and single points of failure in identity before anything else.
9447f6e6 - 01Department of War, CMMC Phase II requirements suspended (July 2026)business.defense.gov ↗
- 02BLS, Wichita economy at a glancebls.gov ↗
- 03Boeing, completes acquisition of Spirit AeroSystems (December 2025)investors.boeing.com ↗
- 04Greater Wichita Partnership, key industriesgreaterwichitapartnership.org ↗
- 05Wichita State University, NSF R&D rankings (January 2026)wichita.edu ↗
- 06The Lawrence Times, Kansas courts cyberattack (November 2023)lawrencekstimes.com ↗
- 07K.S.A. 50-7a02, Kansas Office of Revisor of Statutesksrevisor.gov ↗
- 08Squire Patton Boggs, CMMC DFARS final rule (September 2025)squirepattonboggs.com ↗
- 0922 CFR 120.56, Cornell LIIlaw.cornell.edu ↗
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