If you work with DoD contracts, CMMC, NIST SP 800-171, DFARS, or anything involving Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI), you have likely seen this problem firsthand: Organizations invest heavily in cybersecurity tooling… …but still cannot answer a fundamental question: «What is actually CUI inside the environment?» That sounds simple until assessment preparation begins. Teams start debating: what qualifies as CUI what systems belong inside scope whether engineering data is export controlled whether subcontractors require flow-down obligations whether SharePoint repositories are regulated whether administrative systems inherited CUI exposure whether evidence can survive external review Eventually, many organizations default to the same operationally dangerous decision: «“Put everything in scope to be safe.”» That approach quietly creates: inflated compliance cost unnecessary system inheritance expanded audit boundaries documentation chaos fragmented evidence handling operational paralysis during…