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Our Top Tips for Achieving DORA Compliance

by Danielle Barbour updated May 1, 2024 Regulatory Compliance

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Today, ICT-related incidents are rampant, and data breaches are on the rise. In 2024, millions of records will be affected by data breaches, with the average breach costing businesses 4.45 million U.S. dollars.

Facing these risks, Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) compliance is more important than ever.

Coming into play throughout all EU member states, and enacted by the European Parliament, DORA’s scope extends across a broad spectrum of financial entities, from banks to investment firms, as well as the service providers offering IT and cybersecurity services to financial entities themselves. By casting a wide net, DORA ensures a comprehensive approach that aims to fortify digital infrastructures throughout the entire financial industry.

At the core of DORA is the aim to maintain robust cybersecurity measures. Coming into effect from the 17th of January 2025 onwards, DORA will act as a guiding framework to help financial entities navigate new challenges.

To help you stay protected in increasingly digitalised and connected networks, we’re exploring some of our best DORA compliance tips that are already helping financial services prepare themselves in more detail.

At a glance, these are:

Enhance your third-party risk management
Get early support from all stakeholders
Continually assess your incident reporting and management processes
Consider adopting automation
Document any actions you take

1. Enhance your third-party risk management

Third-party tools, solutions, and partnerships play an integral role in any organisation. They can help you communicate with other team members, safely access sensitive information, and streamline project management tasks. However, these third parties also introduce inherent risks through vulnerabilities that can potentially compromise your security – risks that can be managed to bolster your overall resilience.

Third-party vulnerabilities can occur for a wide range of reasons. It might be due to inherent weaknesses in their infrastructure, a lack of contingency plans for service disruptions, or inadequate contractual provisions addressing cybersecurity standards.

By identifying these vulnerabilities early on, you can take proactive measures to mitigate risks and strengthen your overall third-party risk management – enhancing your overall resilience and ensuring DORA compliance in the process.

2.Get early support from all stakeholders

Achieving compliance with the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) requires active participation and buy-in from all stakeholders within your organisation. To streamline the compliance process and foster a culture of resilience, it’s essential to secure early support from key decision-makers.

Engage with board members, executive leadership, and relevant departments to communicate the importance of DORA compliance and its implications for the organisation. Clearly articulate the benefits of proactive compliance efforts, such as enhanced cybersecurity, improved operational efficiency, and safeguarding of customer trust.

By involving stakeholders from the outset, you can secure the necessary resources, and facilitate smoother implementation of DORA compliance measures. This collaborative approach not only strengthens your overall resilience but also reinforces a shared commitment to cybersecurity excellence across all levels.

3.Continually assess your incident reporting and management processes

Effective incident reporting and management is at the heart of DORA, strengthening the sector’s resilience in the wake of new and emerging challenges.
Unsure if your ICT risk management reporting is as effective as possible? Ask yourself the following:

Do your reporting processes capture all relevant information accurately and efficiently?
Do your reporting processes enable swift detection, containment, and resolution of cybersecurity incidents?
Do you regularly conduct post-incident reviews to identify lessons learned and areas for enhancement?

Continually assessing and refining your incident reporting and management processes can help you bolster your organisation’s resilience against emerging threats, safeguard critical information, and demonstrate your compliance with DORA’s requirements.

4.Consider adopting automation

Automation has emerged as a powerful tool for enhancing operational efficiency and resilience not just in financial services, but in a variety of industries. With the ability to continuously deploy standardised processes, with very little potential for errors, automation tools can help any service align with DORA.

By embracing automation, financial services can not only enhance their operational resilience but also optimise resource allocation and demonstrate compliance with DORA’s requirements in an increasingly complex digital landscape.

To get started, consider adopting automation tools to streamline key processes and mitigate operational risks. Explore opportunities to automate routine tasks like threat detection, incident response, and compliance monitoring. With advanced analytics and machine learning algorithms, automation tools can also help your enterprise to detect and respond to cybersecurity threats in real-time to protect vital information.

5.Document any actions you take

Documenting any actions that you take on the track to meeting DORA compliance can help you demonstrate your due diligence and accountability when needed.

To do this, we recommend prioritising the thorough documentation of any actions taken to enhance operational resilience. These could include the detailed records of any risk assessment, incident report, and any remediation effort taken. Not only will this help you demonstrate your compliance efforts, but will also provide the perfect opportunity to create and maintain comprehensive documentation of your organisation’s policies, procedures, and protocols related to any digital operations and cybersecurity efforts.

Ensure complete DORA compliance with Kiteworks

As financial institutions throughout the European Union continue to navigate the complexities of the digital landscape, achieving DORA compliance is essential for maintaining data integrity, cybersecurity, and regulatory compliance.

By taking note of some of the tips outlined above, any financial institution can begin enhancing their readiness for DORA compliance, protecting sensitive data against evolving cyber threats and upholding trust among stakeholders in the process.

At Kiteworks, we fully understand the importance of ensuring compliance with DORA. With severe penalties facing those who are found to be non-compliant, and continuous risks threatening to gain access to sensitive information, DORA compliance can help strengthen resilience with standardised, and documented, practices.

Discover how the Kiteworks platform is helping ensure DORA compliance with real-time monitoring, comprehensive audit log, and enterprise-grade encryption today.

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