Understanding the EU Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA)
Since the financial industry is so complex and ever-evolving, having a strong cybersecurity strategy is extremely important. To address this issue, the European Union recently introduced the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), which aims to enhance the digital resilience of financial institutions and their service providers. With DORA, organizations must adhere to strict standards in information and communications technology (ICT) service management. To prepare for DORA, one must first understand what it entails, its important components, and what financial institutions need to do to ensure compliance and strengthen their cybersecurity programs.
What is Dora?
The Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) is a comprehensive regulatory framework designed to ensure financial institutions can withstand, respond and recover from all types of ICT-related disruptions and threats. Financial institutions will be required to comply with their mandates by January 17, 2025.
Who is affected by DORA?
DORA targets financial institutions operating within the European Economic Area (EEA), as well as significant and non-significant third party ICT service providers. According to Article 2(1), these third-party providers are defined as entities that provide ICT services, including cloud service providers, data analysis companies, and cybersecurity vendors.
Dora goals
The primary goal of DORA is to enhance the digital operational resilience of financial entities. This is achieved through five main areas:
ICT risk management and governance
Within the DORA standards, financial institutions must adopt robust ICT risk management frameworks. These frameworks should include procedures for ongoing risk assessment and business impact analyses. By identifying potential vulnerabilities and assessing their impact, organizations can better prepare for and mitigate disruptions.
Conducting ongoing risk assessments is essential when looking to maintain operational resilience. By regularly assessing ICT systems, financial institutions can identify potential risks and update their mitigation strategies when it matters most.
Likewise, conducting business impact analyzes helps organizations understand the potential consequences of ICT disruptions. This knowledge allows them to prioritize resources and focus on protecting critical operations.
Incident response and reporting
Financial institutions must have systems in place to monitor, analyze and report ICT incidents. These systems should be able to detect threats in real time and provide insight into their nature and potential impact.
DORA mandates three distinct reports for ICT incidents:
A preliminary report notifies authorities of the incident. A progress report detailing the steps taken to resolve the incident. A final report analyzes root causes and lessons learned. Testing digital operational resilience
It is necessary to conduct regular tests of ICT systems to ensure their resilience. Under DORA, financial institutions must conduct comprehensive routine testing to identify and evaluate weaknesses in their security procedures. The results of these flexibility tests should be reported to the relevant competent authorities. This ensures accountability and gives organizations the opportunity to continually improve their ICT security practices.
Third party risk management
Financial institutions must play an active role in negotiating contractual terms with critical and non-core ICT service providers. They are not allowed to contract with providers that do not meet DORA requirements. Note that critical and non-core ICT service providers to financial institutions have different requirements for compliance with DORA. For example, Cofense is a non-significant ICT service provider where Cofense provides ICT services listed in (Article 3(19)) but does not meet the criteria for classification as a significant ICT provider under Article 31(2)).
Organizations must map their third-party ICT dependencies to understand their risk exposure. This includes identifying all third-party providers and evaluating their compliance with DORA.
Exchange of information and intelligence
DORA encourages financial institutions to share information about threats, risks, and vulnerabilities. This collaborative approach helps organizations stay on top of emerging threats and adopt effective countermeasures.
Enhance email security to comply with DORA
Cofense specializes in email security solutions designed to detect, identify, and eliminate email security threats in real time. By protecting email communications, Cofense solutions help organizations protect their critical data and processes.
Here are some of the ways our products and services can help ensure the resilience of your email security strategy:
Employee Training and Awareness Cofense provides training programs to help employees recognize phishing attempts and other email-based threats. Empowering teams to take an active role in maintaining cybersecurity resilience is a key aspect of DORA compliance. Comprehensive Reporting and Analytics Cofense's reporting and analytics tools make incident response and management easier. Financial institutions can monitor email threats, document incidents, and generate reports that meet DORA's reporting requirements. Cofense's risk management and mitigation solutions are designed to mitigate risks by detecting, identifying, and eliminating email security threats in real time. This allows organizations to gain important insights into system vulnerabilities, enhancing the likelihood of early detection and remediation of future threats.
Cofense ICT Service Provider Compliance
Cofense is committed to meeting DORA requirements for non-critical ICT service providers by January 2025. We are constantly improving our solutions to ensure full compliance and support our customers' regulatory needs.
Addressing DORA requirements is a complex but essential task for financial institutions seeking to enhance their operational resilience. By adopting comprehensive risk management frameworks, conducting regular resiliency testing, and effectively managing third-party risks, organizations can comply with DORA and protect their operations.
Cofense offers robust email security solutions that comply with DORA mandates. Our expertise in detecting and mitigating email threats, combined with our comprehensive reporting tools, ensures financial institutions can meet their regulatory obligations and maintain a strong cybersecurity posture.
Contact Cofense today to learn more about our solutions and how we can support your compliance efforts.
***This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from the Cofense website, written by the Cofense website. Read the original post at: https://cofense.com/feed/blog/navigating-dora-and-ensuring-email-security-compliance
