With fines up to €10,000,000 and punishments for C-suite executives, as well as national laws already in place, the EU-wide NIS2 Directive on cybersecurity requires all essential and important entities to comply with numerous provisions.
While the national categorization of organizations will be finalized by April 2025, essential sectors already identified for active supervision will include Energy, Transport, Health, Digital infrastructure, ICT-service management and Banking, among others. Entities in important sectors such as Food, Post/Courier and Digital providers will be supervised after an incident of non-compliance.
After receiving categorizations, organizations will have a one-year harmonization period to become compliant with the Directive.
❗Most importantly, the Directive extends to the supply chain, meaning that an ICT vendor or other service provider, even if not directly targeted, will still need to be NIS2-compliant.
Also, companies based outside of the EU but offering critical services within the EU fall under the scope of the NIS2 Directive too.
What does this mean in practice?
In addition to implementing a required risk management framework, categorized organizations will need to:
• Report incidents to national monitoring bodies and customers.
• Manage and monitor configurations, including security settings.
• Apply security patches from trusted sources within a reasonable timeframe.
• Manage changes in IT systems.
• Undergo audits.
With the NIS2 “consider everything” approach, this is just the tip of the iceberg.
What can you do today?
With cybersecurity requirements becoming significantly stricter, as a first step we suggest checking your IT systems to identify security gaps and strengthening measures based on those findings.
You can do this for free – quickly and easily – using XOAP, primarily its config.XO module. Not only will you get a clear picture on your current security status, but you will also be able to immediately fix and update as necessary without much manual effort or coding experience.
As a first step we suggest checking your IT systems to identify security gaps and strengthening measures based on those findings. You can do this for free – quickly and easily – using XOAP.
Is it really free?
XOAP offers a free plan for all accounts created by December 31. This includes lifetime access to your account with all modules available free of charge. You can connect 10 systems in the config.XO module and use 1,800 minutes of runtime in image.XO, sufficient for running a security check and making necessary fixes. application.XO and platform.XO modules can be used without any limits. Plus, no credit card is required.
If you need more units, you can upgrade the plan at any time. Your account and all the settings will still be available to you even without an upgrade. Also, our automation engineers will be at your disposal should you need help along the way – just book a demo.
Which NIS2 requirements can I check off with XOAP?
In addition to reducing time, effort and manual errors with automation, here are some key points to consider.
⇨ Real-time monitoring and alerts
Perhaps the crucial provision of NIS2, reporting the incidents to the appointed monitoring bodies and customers in 24 hours requires real-time infrastructure monitoring. With XOAP’s automated alerts you can do just that, rapidly detecting and responding to security breaches.
⇨ Centralized security management
XOAP’s config.XO module makes it easier to align system settings across multiple devices, allowing for centralized configuration management. Enforcing security configurations and policies, automating compliance checks and implementing changes quickly is easy with the module’s configuration-as-code concept, which also supports version control and auditability.
⇨ Latest software versions
With the application.XO module, you can rely on continuous integration. Use it to automate software deployment and updates, so that your systems always run the latest, most secure versions of applications. With XOAP’s free plan, there are no limits whatsoever on using application.XO.
All of this is equally relevant for in-house teams and MSPs. With its multi-tenant management capabilities, XOAP takes care of different organization segments as well as customers, without vendor lock-in.
Talk to us
If there’s relevant staff on your team, they can do wonders with XOAP in a few clicks, even if not experienced in coding. Don’t forget to sign up for free until December 31 – with lifetime account access, you can start exploring the features whenever it works for you.
If you don’t have the right team in place (yet) or would like to have a trusted companion on your way toward NIS2-compliance, book a demo with our automation experts and we can come up with a solid plan together.
