NIS2 stands for the Network and Information Security Directive 2. It broadens the original NIS, known as NIS1. NIS1 aimed to improve cybersecurity across the European Union (EU). As cyber threats have increased, leaders recognized the need for a more expansive approach.
The EU developed NIS2. It became law in October 2024.
NIS2 requires that all mid- to large enterprises that do business within the EU comply. This means that a company based in the United States must follow the rules if it serves customers in the EU.
It also increases the number of industries to which the regulation applies. Any business serving the needs of essential or important entities of the European economy or society must comply.
Fines for non-compliance increase the pressure on businesses to strengthen their cybersecurity. The growing complexity of the requirements make this increasingly more challenging.
Of course, this opens the door for further business transformation. Companies that can quickly and effectively comply will leap ahead of their peers.
What NIS2 Requires—and Why Manual Processes Won’t Cut It
Let’s take a closer look at what companies must do if they operate in key industries in the EU.
Compliance Requirements
NIS2 seeks to enhance resilience of key industries within EU member states. Specifically, it mandates that businesses have a minimum cybersecurity posture that includes:
- Risk assessment and policies for network and information systems
- Policies and procedures for cryptography and encryption
- Vulnerability management policies
- Data access and handling policies
- The use of multi-factor authentication and encryption practices
- Continuous monitoring of security plans and activities
- Incident management and business continuity plans
- Cybersecurity training of employees
- Evaluation of and tactics to ensure supply chain security
Beyond Policies and Plans: The Challenge of Putting It Into Action
At first glance, this seems fairly reasonable. But, putting the policies into action and proving this during an audit can be tricky for businesses.
Managing compliance manually can lead to:
- Inconsistent documentation
- Siloed processes or those which don’t follow specified procedures
- Human error
These faults can pose problems for businesses operating under NIS2 requirements.
For instance, as part of the incident management policy, NIS2 identifies strict timelines to report significant incidents. Businesses must provide an early warning within 24 hours and deliver an incident notification within 72 hours. If someone misclassified an incident, giving the impression that it was not significant, this reporting window could be missed.
The company would be responsible and is likely to have corrective actions taken. These can include:
- fines of €10 million or 2% of total worldwide annual turnover,
- bans on management,
- reputation damage or
- public warnings.
This isn’t an area where businesses want to take risks. Thus, they are looking for ways to minimize manual work as much as possible.
The Role of Workflow Automation in NIS2 Compliance
One way they do this is by leveraging workflow or process automation. When workflows are clearly established, businesses can transfer the steps to process management software. This software pushes work through the series of steps without manual intervention – or triggers manual intervention if required.
How Automation Supports NIS2 Compliance
The benefits of handling workflows and processes through automation are many. They help companies comply with NIS2 by:
- Ensuring repeatability and consistency of security measures
- Enabling real-time escalation and documentation
- Facilitating faster, traceable incident handling and incident reporting
- Helping with audit-readiness and reporting
How STORM Supports NIS2 Compliance Through Automation
For these reasons, businesses increasingly seek a NIS2 ticketing system. What this means is that they want a ticketing system that can support them in:
- automating processes,
- capturing audit-ready documentation, and
- leveraging dashboards and reports to keep abreast of compliance topics.
STORM works as a NIS2 ticketing system to help streamline compliance with customizable automated workflows.
Consider this real world example.
An event occurs. The solution automatically classifies it as significant which triggers an alert to all stakeholders and initiates the incident response workflow within seconds. The automated workflow delivers tasks to the appropriate people and teams almost instantly.
Work steps and time stamps are recorded in the ticket. This creates accurate, non-editable documentation that is ready for audits. And, the current state is always clearly visible to management through a dashboard.
From Compliance to Competitive Advantage
The benefits derived by the business when they investment in compliance and automation are significant. It means that customers have greater trust in the digital infrastructure and digital services.
Increased security efficiency
By clearly outlining the steps needed to orchestrate the response to security incidents, everyone knows immediately how to react. There’s no delay or discussion when a crisis arises.
When businesses then chose to automate their response, it speeds up even more. Action is nearly instant.
Plus, the use of a NIS 2 ticketing system as part of the automation speeds up the time it takes to address audit requirements. Teams document every remediation step and piece of communication. Each entry is already tracked and time stamped. It’s ready to present at any time.
Reduced risk
The faster response and analysis helps prevent or minimize the impact of bad actors. This means less downtime, reduced data loss, and fewer service interruptions for customers.
Of course, if businesses don’t take measures to comply with NIS 2, they are also at risk of fines by relevant authorities. As noted above, these can be extensive.
Greater trust with partners and customers
Promptly responding to incidents shows customers and partners that your business is skilled and responsible. This gives them faith in your ability to care for their business’ digital supply chain needs.
It also keeps your business from getting negative attention in the press. Afterall, we all remember the CrowdStrike incident last year, right?
What to Look for in a Compliance Automation Platform
The bottom line benefits have many companies seeking compliance automation platforms. While many NIS2 ticketing solutions offer automation capabilities, buyers can differentiate between vendors by examining the following.
- Customization. Teams can get started quickly by leveraging pre-configured workflows and dashboards. But, the solution should allow the business to grow and adapt over time. The solution must allow the business to customize workflows to its specific needs.
- Integration with existing tools. The compliance tool is only useful if it leverages the information and knowledge found within the environment. For instance, asset management is critical if teams need to identify risks and security incident impacts. The same is true with the SIEM.
The data from all these tools needs to be combined. This can only happen if integration options are available.
- Clear reporting and audit trail. As mentioned with the STORM solution, having un-editable date/time stamped records means that a real time audit trail is possible. It also simplifies reporting so that teams have an up-to-date round-the-clock understanding of what’s happening.
- Role-based access and escalation. To secure the environment, we must ensure that only the right people can access data and systems. Similarly, only dedicated teams and stakeholders should be involved in addressing security incidents.
This requires establishing access control policies. Teams implement these more easily by attaching policies to roles. The role can then be applied to individual users.
This means that there is tighter and more consistent control over access. Any tool used in security should include such options.
- Vendor reliability and support. Long-term business stability requires trusted partners. The vendor with whom you work should have a track record of helping their customers make use of and troubleshoot the selected solution.
Conclusion
Whether you’re an IT professional or business enabler, compliance is a top concern. Implementing NIS2 requirements protects your business in a variety of ways – from fines, data loss, and downtime. It means that customers trust you and want to continue their business relationship with your company.
However, the requirements are many. By using a NIS2 compliance automation solution, you can ensure that tasks are done correctly and efficiently. This also makes audits easier.
Be proactive. See how STORM can help your organization simplify NIS2 compliance.
