NIS-2, DORA & GDPR: One Platform to Rule Compliance
Fragmentation is the Enemy of Compliance
Compliance in Europe isn’t getting any simpler. Between GDPR, NIS-2, and DORA, companies today are juggling overlapping regulations with high stakes and limited resources. In many organisations, especially those operating in highly regulated sectors like finance, healthcare, or government, compliance has become a tangled mess of tools, manual processes, and data blind spots.
On average, organisations use 6+ different tools to manage sensitive data flows – from file sharing and email encryption to cloud storage and web forms. Each additional system adds complexity. It becomes harder to track access, enforce consistent security policies, and prove compliance. Worse, these fragmented ecosystems often lack central oversight – making it nearly impossible to answer basic questions like:
“Where is our sensitive data? Who accessed it? Was it encrypted? Was it logged?”
That’s not just an IT headache. It’s a liability.
In 2024, 35.5% of data breaches were linked to third-party access, and 41.4% of ransomware attacks started through supply chain vectors – especially unsecured file transfer tools. As new regulations like NIS-2 and DORA tighten the legal requirements around data visibility, incident response, and supply chain risk, many European companies are realising that spreadsheets and siloed tools are no longer enough.
Compliance isn’t just about checking boxes. It’s about building secure data governance into the fabric of how your organisation communicates – internally, externally, and with every third party in between.
This article explores how a unified platform for compliance in Europe – specifically, the Kiteworks Private Data Network – can help organisations align with GDPR, NIS-2, and DORA simultaneously. We’ll look at the pain points European businesses are facing, the risks of continuing with a fragmented approach, and how a single, consolidated platform can transform compliance from a burden into a strategic advantage.
What Are NIS-2, DORA, and GDPR – And Why Do They Matter Now?
If you’re doing business in Europe, you’re almost certainly subject to at least one of these frameworks. In reality, most enterprises are affected by all three. Together, NIS-2, DORA, and GDPR form a regulatory triangle that governs how sensitive data must be protected, shared, monitored, and reported.
Let’s break them down:
GDPR – The Foundation of Data Protection in Europe
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has been in effect since 2018 and remains the gold standard for personal data privacy. GDPR requires organisations to protect personal data through “data protection by design and by default,” ensure transparency in data processing, and provide individuals with rights over their information.
Key requirements include:
- Full transparency over data processing activities
- Strong access controls and encryption
- Breach notification within 72 hours
- Proof of compliance through documentation and logging
Why it matters now: GDPR enforcement is intensifying. Data Protection Authorities in the EU have become more assertive, and fines are rising. In fragmented systems, proving GDPR compliance is nearly impossible – especially when sensitive data is shared across dozens of platforms without a central audit trail.
NIS-2 – Cybersecurity Resilience for Essential Entities
The Network and Information Security Directive (NIS-2) entered into force in January 2023 and significantly expands the scope of the original NIS Directive. It applies not just to essential services (like energy and healthcare), but also to digital infrastructure, financial services, public administration, and many more sectors.
Key requirements include:
- Rigorous cybersecurity risk management practices
- Incident response readiness and mandatory breach reporting
- Supply chain and third-party risk controls
- Proof of policies and controls through audits
Why it matters now: NIS-2 requires companies to take a proactive, structured approach to risk-based security and visibility. With strict accountability and potential fines, IT and compliance teams can no longer rely on reactive or manual methods – especially when facing modern ransomware and supply chain attacks.
DORA – Digital Operational Resilience in Finance
Since January 2025, organisations in Europe must be ready to prove compliance with the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA).Designed for financial entities and their ICT service providers, DORA aims to reduce systemic risk in the financial system caused by digital threats and third-party failures.
Key requirements include:
- Mapping and governance of all ICT-related risk
- Resilience testing, incident classification, and reporting
- Oversight of third-party providers (including cloud and SaaS)
- Full auditability of digital operations
Why it matters now: DORA mandates a level of traceability and testing that many financial institutions currently can’t meet – not because they lack the will, but because their data and communication systems are spread too thin across legacy tools. Without a centralised compliance framework, resilience becomes a guessing game.
The Common Thread: Compliance Requires Centralised Control
While each regulation serves a different purpose, they all require a governed, traceable, and secure approach to sensitive data. Whether you’re handling personal data (GDPR), defending against cyber threats (NIS-2), or managing operational risk (DORA), the core expectations are the same:
- Know where your data is
- Control who accesses it
- Log everything
- Report breaches quickly
- Govern third-party exchanges
Trying to meet these demands with a disconnected set of point solutions – email plugins here, MFT tools there, cloud drives in between – creates a patchwork that’s hard to secure and even harder to prove compliant.
Why Traditional Compliance Strategies Fail
It’s easy to blame growing regulation for today’s compliance headaches – but the real issue lies closer to home: most organisations are using outdated, fragmented strategies to manage sensitive data and demonstrate control. And those strategies are no longer fit for purpose.
Let’s unpack why.
Tool Sprawl Creates Blind Spots
Most organisations rely on 6 to 10 separate tools to manage sensitive data flows – fragmenting control and increasing compliance complexity across email, cloud storage, SFTP, web portals, and more. That means 6-10 different systems, providers, policies, and security configurations – all loosely stitched together, if at all.
The result?
- No single source of truth for data access or movement
- Inconsistent enforcement of security policies
- Gaps in logging and audit trails
- Growing dependence on manual reporting
Tool sprawl doesn’t just increase operational complexity – it makes compliance practically unmanageable. When every platform logs data differently (or not at all), proving regulatory adherence under NIS-2, DORA, or GDPR becomes a scramble of screenshots, exported CSVs, and fragmented logs.
Shadow IT and Unmonitored Channels
Fragmented ecosystems often open the door to shadow IT – tools and services used outside the organisation’s governance framework. Employees frustrated with friction in official systems often turn to unsecured file-sharing services or personal messaging apps to get their work done.
From a compliance perspective, this is a disaster:
- Data can leave the organisation with no trace
- Breach detection becomes slow or impossible
- There’s no way to prove what was shared, with whom, and whether it was encrypted
And under new rules like NIS-2’s incident notification requirements and DORA’s operational resilience mandates, organisations can no longer afford these visibility gaps.
Manual Compliance Workflows Drain Resources
In many organisations, compliance is still treated as a periodic task – something done manually once a year or during audits. This includes:
- Compiling activity logs from different platforms
- Manually reviewing access permissions
- Preparing breach reports after the fact
These processes are not just inefficient. They’re also too slow to meet the real-time demands of today’s regulations. DORA, for example, expects financial institutions to classify incidents and notify authorities quickly, based on accurate, detailed reporting. That level of responsiveness is impossible when compliance lives in spreadsheets.
The Cost of Fragmentation Is Measurable
This isn’t just a governance problem – it’s a business risk.
- In 2024, the average cost of a data breach reached $4.88 million, according to IBM.
- 35.5% of breaches were linked to third-party access.
- 46.75% of ransomware attacks involved the exploitation of common tech products – especially unmanaged file transfer tools.
These are not abstract numbers. They are the direct result of compliance failures, system complexity, and lack of unified oversight.
The Bottom Line
Traditional compliance strategies rely on patchwork tools, reactive processes, and siloed control. That approach might have worked when GDPR first came into force – but under the newer, more demanding frameworks like NIS-2 and DORA, it’s a liability.
The only sustainable path forward is centralisation: one platform that provides visibility, control, and provable compliance across every channel where sensitive data moves.
Why a Unified Platform Is the Answer
When regulations demand speed, transparency, and provability, patching together compliance from disconnected systems just doesn’t cut it anymore. What organisations need is a unified platform – one that provides secure data governance for European businesses and allows them to manage compliance holistically across all touchpoints.
Let’s look at what that means in practice – and why it matters.
What Is a Unified Platform for Compliance in Europe?
A unified platform connects all systems, channels, and stakeholders involved in sensitive data exchanges. Instead of relying on different tools for email encryption, file sharing, secure forms, audit logging, and policy enforcement, everything is handled in one secure, centralised environment.
Key characteristics include:
- End-to-end encryption across all communication channels (email, SFTP, web forms, APIs)
- Granular access control based on roles and attributes
- Immutable audit logs that track every action, in real time
- Zero Trust architecture at the data layer – not just the network perimeter
- Consistent policy enforcement across internal teams and third-party partners
Think of it as moving from a jigsaw puzzle of tools to a single control tower.
Why This Approach Works
Let’s tie this back to the challenges we’ve identified – and the regulations that demand solutions.
Full Visibility
With a unified platform, security and compliance teams can see exactly:
- Who accessed which files
- When and how those files moved
- Whether encryption was in place
- Whether the activity was authorised
That means GDPR access requests can be answered quickly and DORA incident reports can be supported with actual data – not guesswork.
Policy Enforcement Without Gaps
Consistent policies reduce the risk of human error and shadow IT. For example:
- A single DLP rule blocks unencrypted file transfers across all channels
- Access rights are defined once, not across multiple tools
- Logs are consistent, structured, and always on
This eliminates the biggest cause of non-compliance: systems that don’t talk to each other.
Third-Party Risk Control
NIS-2 and DORA place increasing emphasis on supply chain security. A unified platform ensures that:
- External partners follow the same controls as internal users
- Every third-party exchange is logged and encrypted
- Audit-ready records exist for regulator review
Unified Doesn’t Mean Complicated
A common fear among IT teams is that consolidation means disruption. But solutions like the Kiteworks Private Data Network are designed to integrate with existing infrastructure while simplifying operations – not overhauling them.
Instead of deploying, configuring, and maintaining five or ten different systems, teams manage one platform:
- One interface
- One policy engine
- One audit log
- One place to prove compliance
This Is About More Than Compliance
While the drivers are regulatory, the benefits go far beyond checklists:
- Faster response to breaches and audits
- Lower risk of human error or oversight
- Improved collaboration with secure, frictionless sharing
- Cost savings by eliminating redundant tools
In other words: unified compliance isn’t just safer – it’s smarter.
In the next section, we’ll look at how the Kiteworks Private Data Network delivers on this promise, with real features that directly map to European regulatory requirements.
How Kiteworks Solves the Compliance Puzzle
The compliance challenges European organisations face aren’t just technical – they’re structural. Regulations like GDPR, NIS-2, and DORA demand visibility, control, and provable governance across all data exchanges, not just perimeter security.
Kiteworks addresses this need with its Private Data Network (PDN) – a platform that consolidates sensitive content exchanges into one secure, controlled environment. It replaces fragmented point solutions with unified data governance across email, file transfers, web forms, APIs, and more.
What makes it relevant to compliance?
- Consistent policies and controls: One platform for enforcing security and data protection rules across all channels.
- Granular access management: Role- and attribute-based permissions with least-privilege access.
- End-to-end encryption: Applied automatically, for both inbound and outbound exchanges.
- Immutable audit logs: Real-time tracking of all activities, enabling audit readiness and incident response.
- Third-party governance: Full visibility into external data exchanges, helping meet NIS-2 and DORA supply chain requirements.
In short, Kiteworks doesn’t just protect infrastructure – it secures how data moves, who interacts with it, and whether every step is traceable and compliant.
Conclusion: Compliance Can’t Be a Patchwork Anymore
Europe’s regulatory landscape is evolving faster than most organisations can adapt. NIS-2, DORA, and GDPR each bring their own requirements – but they share a common message: fragmentation is risk.
When sensitive data flows through dozens of disconnected tools, compliance becomes a guessing game. Visibility fades. Proof is missing. And trust is compromised.
A unified platform approach changes that. It brings consistency, transparency, and control – across every exchange, with every stakeholder.
In a time where data is both an asset and a liability, compliance starts with knowing what moves, where it moves, and who’s responsible for it. One platform makes that possible.
Next Step: See Unified Compliance in Action
If you’re struggling with overlapping compliance requirements and limited visibility into how sensitive data moves across your organisation, you’re not alone.
Let us show you how a unified platform can simplify governance and strengthen your compliance posture – without adding complexity.
Request a demo to see how the Kiteworks Private Data Network supports GDPR, NIS-2, and DORA compliance in one place.
A unified compliance platform consolidates all tools and processes used to manage, protect, and monitor sensitive data exchanges. For European organisations subject to GDPR, NIS-2, and DORA, it ensures consistent policy enforcement, real-time visibility, and audit-ready logging—reducing complexity and regulatory risk.
Using 6 to 10 disconnected tools to handle sensitive data creates blind spots, inconsistent logging, and fragmented controls. This increases the risk of non-compliance, especially under frameworks that require visibility and fast incident reporting.
Organisations face overlapping demands for encryption, access control, third-party risk governance, and auditability. Without centralised governance, managing these requirements consistently becomes difficult and error-prone.
Kiteworks offers one platform for secure content governance across all channels. Features like end-to-end encryption, granular access controls, and immutable audit logs help meet the core demands of GDPR, NIS-2, and DORA from a single, controlled environment.
With GDPR fully enforced and NIS-2 and DORA now active, regulators expect provable control over data handling and digital operations. Secure data governance helps organisations avoid fines, reputational damage, and legal exposure.
GDPR focuses on protecting personal data and privacy across all sectors. NIS-2 targets the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure and essential services. DORA is specific to the financial sector and enforces digital operational resilience, including oversight of ICT providers and incident response capabilities.
By using a single platform to manage data flows, access control, encryption, and logging, organisations can reduce fragmentation and ensure consistent compliance across GDPR, NIS-2, and DORA.
Additional Resources