With the entry into force of the EU’s NIS2 regulation, the regulatory environment for companies in Europe is changing fundamentally: For many managers in the areas of IT security and software development, however, implementing the new requirements is much more than a technical challenge. NIS2 requires not only robust technical measures, but also a cultural change within companies that strengthens collaboration between software development and cybersecurity.
Strengthen trust among partners and customers
Those who fail to proactively manage this change risk serious consequences – from financial penalties to loss of trust among partners and customers. It is therefore imperative that leaders prepare their organizations now for the new era of digital resilience. Meeting the requirements of NIS2 is crucial to avert obstacles to your own business and to increase trust with partners and customers in the EU.
To do this, companies should go beyond the previously proven security analysis practices. They need processes that help their teams identify vulnerabilities, assess their severity, and understand the impact of incidents in real time. Automation is no longer just a “nice to have” – to meet legal requirements, automation is essential.
Establish the secure-by-default mentality
This means that companies should not only focus on incidents in production, but should also establish a secure-by-default mentality to prevent incidents as early as possible. This requires a concerted shift left in which security becomes the focus of the software development cycle. Many companies say they already do this, but rely predominantly on manual processes. This means that errors escape control.
Closer collaboration between security and development teams is essential to ensure that software is not released too early in the pipeline before everyone is confident of its security. Automated quality and safety gates are an excellent way to eliminate manual work in this process and support the shift-left mentality. The best way to make this possible is to bring together observability and security data into a unified platform. This allows you to understand the full context behind incidents and use this knowledge to drive automated pipelines. These capabilities are critical to meeting NIS2 requirements, avoiding barriers to doing business in Europe and increasing customer confidence worldwide.
Image from rawpixel.com on Freepik
Author image: Dyntrace
