DORA Automation: Ensure Compliance and Operational Resilience

European enterprises face many GRC requirements, demanding significant resources to maintain compliance and provide auditors and regulators with the necessary evidence. The Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), which took effect on January 16, 2023, introduces additional regulatory requirements for financial services and ICT companies operating in or working with the European Union (EU).

What is DORA?

DORA outlines guidelines for cyber risk management and operational resilience, aiming to enhance the digital resilience of financial entities across Europe. While it primarily applies to EU organisations, UK-based companies may be subject to DORA if they do business with EU entities. Compliance is required not only for financial institutions but also for ICT services companies supporting them.

The compliance deadline, set for January 17, 2025, has now passed. It’s crucial for in-scope companies to implement efficient strategies to meet DORA’s requirements, both now and in the long term. Managing this alongside other regulations can be resource-intensive.

Automation enables organisations to streamline compliance, strengthen operational resilience, and reduce burdens. Continue reading this blog for a more detailed exploration.

Understanding DORA Regulation’s Requirements 

DORA’s set of requirements overlaps in many cases with other compliance regulations and their associated controls:

• ICT Risk Management: Establishing a comprehensive framework for identifying, protecting against, detecting, responding to, and recovering from ICT risks.
• ICT Incident Reporting: Implementing robust mechanisms for reporting major ICT-related incidents to relevant authorities within strict timeframes.
• Digital Operational Resilience Testing: Conducting regular testing, including advanced testing like threat-led penetration testing (TLPT), to ensure systems can withstand disruptions.
• Third-Party Risk Management: Managing risks associated with third-party ICT providers, including due diligence, contractual obligations, and continuous monitoring.
• Information Sharing: Participating in information sharing arrangements to enhance collective cybersecurity resilience.

Tracking compliance status, progress, and regulatory changes across multiple requirements can be overwhelming for many organisations. Manual processes often make this even more challenging, quickly becoming unsustainable. Automation eases this burden by enabling security and compliance teams to meet regulatory requirements without straining resources, reducing frontline coverage, or increasing business risk. It also consolidates compliance requirements from any frameworks such as GDPR, ISO 27001, and NIS2 into a comprehensive, unified view.

How Automation Supports DORA Compliance in Cybersecurity 

Deploying the right automation technology can support Financial Services and ICT Services companies to deliver on the different technical elements which drive the higher-level key requirements for DORA.

• ICT Risk Management:
  • Automated risk assessments, vulnerability scanning, security patching, and configuration management are all elements organisations are already working on.  Many of these require manual processes and significant resources to deliver, never mind the collection and collation of the evidence to provide to regulators.
• ICT Incident Reporting:
  • Incident detection, classification, and reporting workflows can benefit significantly from the use of Automation ensuring timely notifications to authorities.
• Digital Operational Resilience Testing:
  • Penetration testing, vulnerability assessments, and scenario testing, when enhanced with automation can facilitate regular and efficient testing by automating repetitive and mundane elements as well as combining the information from multiple systems and solutions to provide a higher level of efficacy.
• Third-Party Risk Management:
  • Automated monitoring of third-party providers, triggering alerts for potential risks and compliance gaps can be realised through the correct use of automation technologies
• Information Sharing:
  • Automated threat intelligence feeds and platforms can facilitate information sharing and collaboration through robust, automated integrations.

Implement DORA Automation: A Practical Approach 

Follow this step-by-step guide to easily implement DORA automation within your organisation. AI automation can help you stay compliant and adapt to future regulatory changes with ease. 

1. Conduct a DORA Gap Analysis: 

Assess current practices against DORA requirements to identify areas needing improvement.

2. Prioritize Automation Opportunities: 

Focus on automating key processes related to risk management, incident reporting, and testing.

3. Select and Integrate Automation Tools: 

Choose appropriate security automation tools for each area and integrate them into existing workflows focusing on automation tools with maximum flexibility and coverage as well as the inclusion of AI to enhance standard process automation capabilities.

4. Establish Monitoring and Reporting: 

Set up dashboards to track DORA metrics and demonstrate compliance to regulators.

5. Maintain and Update Automation: 

Regularly review and update automation tools and processes to adapt to evolving threats and regulatory changes.

DORA Automation Tools and Technologies 

Various tools and technologies can streamline and automate compliance with DORA obligations. Below is a breakdown of key solutions categorized by DORA’s core requirements.

• Risk Management: Vulnerability scanners, security information and event management (SIEM) systems, configuration management tools.
• Incident Reporting: Incident management platforms, automated notification systems.
• Resilience Testing: Penetration testing tools, vulnerability assessment platforms, chaos engineering tools.
• Third-Party Risk Management: Vendor risk management platforms, security rating services.
• Information Sharing: Threat intelligence platforms, collaborative security platforms.

All of these tools can be integrated into a robust and flexible centralized automation platform, adding significant value to organisations.

Best Practices for DORA Automation 

These best practices will help you maximize the benefits of security automation throughout your DORA and other regulatory compliance journeys.

• Align automation with DORA requirements and regulatory guidance
• Prioritize automation based on risk and criticality
• Ensure data accuracy and integrity for reporting and compliance
• Integrate automation into existing security and IT operations workflows
• Establish clear roles and responsibilities for automation management
• Regularly review and update automation processes to address new threats and regulatory changes

DORA and Cybersecurity: A Synergistic Approach 

Achieving compliance is not only about ticking boxes but more about building a solid cybersecurity foundation. Most of the controls need to meet a wide range of regulatory requirements overlap, and most of them fall squarely within the realm of cybersecurity. Effective risk management, both in your own environment and across your supply chain, along with regular testing and proactive incident reporting, are not just compliance requirements—they’re essential components of a strong cybersecurity program.

A strong cybersecurity program could already meet many of DORA’s requirements. The real struggle for many organisations is combining data from different risk and cybersecurity areas into a clear, comprehensive view that satisfies all stakeholders. 

This is where adding security automation to your cybersecurity program will create this centralized view and help achieve the holy grail of continuous security and compliance.

Benefits of DORA Compliance Automation 

Automating DORA compliance opens the door to a world where:

• The compliance burden is reduced across your internal teams
• Each audit takes minutes to provide the data required rather than weeks and potentially months of heavy lifting – streamlining compliance
• Security and risk teams are automatically alerted to changes in your compliance posture with the ability to respond and resolve the compliance breaches
• Security controls can be mapped and evidenced across multiple regulations giving the bigger picture to your executive team
• Operational Resilience and security posture are continuously improved and that improvement reported regularly within your organisation
• Your organisation has a real time view of risk both internal and within your supply chain
• Your resources are freed up to manage improvements in security and risk rather than battling just to keep up 

With DORA’s deadline already passed, now is the time to take action! Security automation drives compliance and strengthens digital resilience, streamlining processes and enhancing both security and efficiency. The right automation tool can elevate your efforts and simplify compliance.

Ready to see how it can work for you? Request a demo today!