The NIS2 Directive is European Union's legislation concerning cybersecurity that aims to enhance cybersecurity levels in the EU through legal measures.
The Network and Information Systems Directive (NIS2) is the European Union's cybersecurity legislation aimed at enhancing cybersecurity across the EU. It was first introduced in July 2016 as the NIS Directive and was revised in December 2022.
The aim is to strengthen cybersecurity and resilience in EU organizations through strong baseline guidelines for all member states. The directive also seeks to enhance cooperation among EU member states in addressing cyber incidents and threats.
The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) established the European Vulnerability Disclosure database to promote knowledge sharing between member states.
The NIS2 Directive is comprised of 46 articles. In a nutshell, the new directive includes five major requirements and aims to raise standards for cybersecurity in its member states across the most critical sectors. Even if your organization is not covered under the "critical sectors," complying with the NIS2 Directive helps protect your organization from cyberattacks by improving security policies and capabilities around key areas like:
Incident response and resilienceCyber incidents are unavoidable, but your response determines the impact. NIS2 requires organizations to have strong response plans and promptly report incidents. This ensures preparedness to detect, respond, and recover from cyber incidents, minimizing downtime and financial losses.
Business continuityYour organization needs to have a business continuity plan as per the NIS2 Directive. These plans, which include backup and recovery procedures, are essential for ensuring that you can continue your operations in the event of a cyber incident. By having a solid plan in place, you can minimize downtime and ensure that critical services remain uninterrupted.
Information security policyEffective incident resolution relies on a strong security policy. NIS2 compliance can assist with this by ensuring that your company develops a comprehensive security policy that outlines security objectives, acceptable risk levels, and the roles and responsibilities of your team. Additionally, regular evaluations and revisions to the policy will strengthen ongoing protection of your network and IT infrastructure, effectively safeguarding your business against potential cyberthreats.
Supply chain securityAnother component of NIS2 is implementing security measures to strengthen the safety of the supply chain, which includes third-party suppliers and contractors. By securing your supply chain, you can lower the chances of cyberattacks coming from third-party entities.
Cyber risk managementThe NIS2 Directive is designed to safeguard critical infrastructure. It requires the establishment of risk management processes to manage cyber risks and to mitigate threats and prevent cybercriminals from causing widespread damage.
Policies on risk analysis and information system security.
Leverage browser security, risk based vulnerability, patch management, anti-ransomware and mobile security capabilities.
Assess domain, email, app, and network security, get a cyber score.
Proactively detect threats via event correlation, anomaly analysis, and real-time threat intelligence.
Document, publish, and manage IT security policies as knowledge articles in ServiceDesk Plus.
Simplify risk analysis and policy optimization with detailed reports.
Stay informed about firmware vulnerabilities with timely risk updates and reports.
Create a central content repository for policies.
Incident handling, which involves implementing measures and protocols to prevent, identify, investigate, and mitigate or address and recover from an incident.
Integrate with SIEM solutions to correlate, identify and isolate bad actors through real-time threat detection.
Track mean time to detect, mean time to respond, and incidents, and speeds up root cause analysis and resolution with a 3-way console.
Notify the SOC team and IT admins to securely isolate the system, protect endpoints from ransomware, and provide immediate backups during incidents.
Leverage IT automation to trigger actions on system events, metrics, and send multi-channel alerts.
Detect, triage, and respond to incidents with AI-powered automations, incident response workflows, and orchestration.
Define custom processes for incident handling.
Business continuity, such as strategic management of backups, thorough preparation for potential disasters, and the ability to handle crises effectively.
Enable real-time monitoring and analysis of firewall configurations to ensure firewalls are properly setup to prevent security breaches and potential disasters.
Back up and restore AD, Azure AD, M365, Google Workspace, and Exchange with automated, secure backups.
Automate configuration backups using syslogs and swiftly restore stable configurations during downtime.
Isolate suspicious endpoints for forensic examination before reintroducing them. In case of a ransomware infection, restore files using the latest backup.
Develop applications that automate the entire data backup process, facilitating timely backup of critical mission-sensitive data.
Supply chain security, including quality, resilience, and cybersecurity measures of suppliers and service providers.
Discover, manage, and govern access to administrative accounts and enterprise entities from a central console.
Evaluate the cybersecurity posture of vendors by analyzing their domain, email, application, and network security.
Build a vendor risk assessment module that helps monitor supplier security and enforce it in the supply chain.
Security during the acquisition, development, and maintenance of network and information systems, which includes managing vulnerabilities and disclosing them.
Gain a comprehensive firmware vulnerabilities dashboard that enables users to view all vulnerabilities across their infrastructure.
View, organize, and search firmware vulnerabilities by CVE ID, type, severity, and status using the network configuration manager.
Gain a holistic vulnerability management solution that includes continuous threat evaluation and visibility through a unified dashboard.
Discover, store, synchronize, and manage the credentials of network devices and components.
Policies and procedures to assess the effectiveness of cybersecurity risk management controls.
Fulfill the governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) needs with respect to hardware and software assets.
Manage policies and procedures within the knowledge base in ServiceDesk Plus and track incident metrics like mean time to respond.
Evaluate firewall rules and configurations to ensure they align with security standards.
Enhance cybersecurity risk management by creating custom compliance policies tailored to your organization’s needs.
Document, identify, and evaluate potential risks periodically using applications built on the AppCreator platform.
Basic cyber hygiene practices and cybersecurity training.
Ensure regular patching of operating systems and applications while enforcing certificate-based device authentication.
Secure and grant access to critical business entities through dynamic role- and policy-based access controls.
Customize and deploy a self-service portal that showcases cybersecurity awareness articles and policies to employees.
Policies and procedures regrading the use of cryptography and, where appropriate, encryption.
Features FIPS 140-2 algorithms. Users can enable FIPS mode for security. Endpoint Central encrypts Windows with BitLocker and Macs with FileVault.
Enable FIPS-compliant mode to follow FIPS 140-2 standards, utilizing FIPS-approved algorithms for increased security during sensitive operations.
Human resources security, access control policies, and asset management.
Regularly review and validate user access to organizational resources using AD360’s access certification campaigns.
Gain comprehensive, consolidated insights into asset health and user behavior.
Manage onboarding and access provisioning requests. Track hardware assets, software assets, and license agreements.
Access a wide range of asset management capabilities for hardware and software.
Enforce granular access control with RBAC.
Build applications using AppCreator to assist with secure employee on-boarding and off-boarding.
The use of multi-factor authentication or continuous authentication solutions, secured voice, video and text communications and secured emergency communication systems within the entity, where appropriate.
Discover 20 methods of adaptive MFA, including FIDO and biometrics, requiring all factors to succeed for access.
Leverage text, voice, and video communication options for administrators to securely assist end users with device troubleshooting.
Enable MFA and SMS and voice-based alerts that are generated per your configuration.
Implement robust security and communication features, including email alert notifications, two-factor authentication, and many more.
Within 24 hours, an early warning should be communicated, as well as some first presumptions regarding the kind of incident to the competent authority or CSIRT.
Automatically notify security teams about every deviation identified by the anomaly detection module. Trigger workflow to minimize the incident's impact.
Create real-time incidents on the status page, along with a summary detailing the incident.
Trigger incident notifications to the relevant stakeholders and authorities within 24 hours.
Automate response with real-time alerts, anomaly detection, and actions like IP blocking and quarantining.
Implement ML-powered dynamic thresholds to detect signs of potential trouble in the IT infrastructure environment in real time.
Detect unauthorized firewall rule changes and potential breaches, and generate alerts with detailed information on severity and source.
Detect unauthorized changes and send instant alerts with detailed logs of discrepancies.
After 72 hours, a full notification report must be communicated, containing the assessment of the incident, severity and impact, and indicators of compromise.
Trigger an RCA report on downtime, detailing the cause and a trace route map, sent via selected alerts.
Send custom notifications to stakeholders with an assessment of the incident, impact, severity, etc. after 72 hours.
Generate over 50 comprehensive reports detailing severity, impact, and indicators of compromise for a thorough network analysis.
Ensure compliance through auditing and reporting on firewall rules, detecting unauthorized access, and creating security audit reports.
Monitor all configuration changes and flag unauthorized or suspicious modifications as potential indicators of compromise.
After one month, a final report must be communicated.
Send an incident notification with the RCA, workaround, resolution, etc. to relevant authorities after one month.
Assists with Articles 21(2)(a), 21(2)(b), 23(4)(a), 29(1)(a), and 29(1)(b).
Check out our downloadable guide for high-level insights into the NIS2 Directive and how ManageEngine can help you implement effective NIS2 compliance controls.
The complete implementation of the NIS2 controls requires a variety of process, policy, people, and technology controls. The solutions mentioned above are some of the ways in which IT management tools help with the NIS2 Directive requirements. Coupled with other appropriate solutions, processes, people controls, and policies, ManageEngine's solutions can help organizations align with the NIS2 Directive. Organizations must do their independent assessment with respect to ManageEngine's features and to what extent they can help them comply with this directive. This material is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be considered as legal advice for the NIS2 Directive compliance. ManageEngine makes no warranties, express, implied, or statutory, as to the information in this material. Please contact your legal advisor to learn how NIS2 impacts your organization and what you need to do to comply with the NIS2 Directive.
