Nine Reasons a Modern IGA is Critical to NIS2 Directive Compliance

The European Union has devised an updated legislative framework, the Network and Information Security Directive (NIS2), to harden security and increase the resilience of IT infrastructure and services against malicious cyberactivity within EU member countries. Built on the original EU-wide legislation on cybersecurity (NIS Directive), NIS2 takes aim at overcoming the limitations of the initial framework by significantly expanding its scope and requirements.

Modern Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) helps IT infrastructure and services managers more effectively manage digital identities and access rights across their enterprises and has an important role in implementing new NIS2 requirements. In this post, we’ll explain the NIS2 compliance priorities and why modern IGA is so critical to incorporating the NIS2 framework within organizations by helping them gain more access control over critical systems and data, ensure compliance with new security standards, and reduce the risk of incidents and data breaches.

The role of IGA in meeting NIS2 regulations

1. Risk management and governance

This NIS2 top priority requirement calls for organizations to use a risk-based security strategy to detect and proactively mitigate threats to critical infrastructure. Organizations must have a process to evaluate operational and technological risks to critical services, uphold governance guidelines, and guarantee a comprehensive understanding of organizational hazards.

Modern IGA enables centralized control over user access to sensitive data and vital IT systems and guarantees that access controls are scalable, compliant, and consistent across the organization.

2. Identity and Access Management (IAM)

Critical infrastructure may be exposed by insider threats or unauthorized access to sensitive systems if user identities and access rights are not properly managed. NIS2 requires organizations to restrict who has access to essential systems and data and put strict access controls in place.

Modern IGA streamlines compliance verification and guarantees that out-of-date or improper access permissions are quickly revoked by automating user access review and recertification procedures. This facilitates least privilege enforcement and role-based access control (RBAC) and privileged access management (PAM).

3. Incident detection and response

NIS2 requires organizations to effectively detect and respond to security issues within designated timeframes. Prompt identification and effective reaction minimizes the potential damage of security events.

A modern IGA system provides real-time monitoring, analyzing and managing activity logs, and facilitates protocols for communicating and reporting incidents. Modern IGA interfaces with Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems and other security solutions to swiftly revoke or modify access rights during an incident. This ensures organizational NIS2 compliance and mitigates the risk of sustained attacks.

4. Vulnerability management

Exploiting vulnerabilities in hardware, software, or configurations are common cyberattack vectors. NIS2 requires organizations to proactively detect vulnerabilities and patch them inside the IT infrastructure to prevent attackers from taking advantage of them.

Modern IGA provides risk rating for identities and dynamic access authorization adjustments based on ongoing risk evaluations and automates patching solutions for prompt mitigation. Security teams can take preventative measures against possible risks before they materialize into incidents and highlight high-risk user behavior or abnormalities in access patterns.

5. Monitoring, logging, and audit trails

Unauthorized activity detection and incident investigation require accurate logging and monitoring. NIS2 compliance requires organizations to keep track of important system access logs and monitor network traffic for audit purposes.

A modern IGA system enables organizations to maintain and manage centralized detailed logs of who accessed which vital systems, and when, to ensure proper monitoring and the discovery and reporting of anomalies and potential breaches. Modern IGA provides strong audit trails that record all access actions and modifications to user privileges and demonstrate compliance.

6. Supply chain and third-party risk management

Attacks on third-party vendors can put an organization’s vital services at risk. To help secure supply chains, NIS2 requires organizations to manage risks related to partners, suppliers, and the supply chain and ensure third parties have safe access management.

Modern IGA provides ongoing evaluation of vendor security procedures, reviews of contractual duties, and evaluations of vendor compliance. A modern IGA system can grant contractors, vendors, or partners restricted, time-limited access to systems based on roles and agreements and extend identity governance to third-party users.

7. Backup and disaster recovery

Critical infrastructure can be brought down by a security breach. NIS2 requires organizations to have backup and recovery procedures in place to ensure the continuation of essential services during and after a security incident.

A modern IGA system regularly backs up important information and provides an organization with strong disaster recovery and backup procedures that reduce downtime, guarantee resilience against ransomware and unchangeable backups, and ensure that NIS2 continuity requirements are met.

8. Mitigating the human element in cybersecurity failure

NIS2 requires organizations to conduct regular security awareness and compliance training to reduce human risk factors like phishing attacks.

Human error is a top factor in cybersecurity incidents. Educating staff members on security best practices and response procedures fortifies organizational defense against cyberattacks. A modern IGA enables organizations to eliminate the human error factor by automating and managing user identity lifecycles—a crucial element of compliance.

9. Security policy and compliance reporting

NIS2 requires organizations to set up security policies that comply with legal specifications and notify the appropriate authorities of any breaches. These specifications include the safeguarding of personal and sensitive data.

A modern IGA helps organizations control who has access to sensitive and personal data and helps guarantee that they are not unintentionally disclosing confidential information, which supports GDPR and NIS2 compliance. The system also enables security policy updates on a regular basis to comply with NIS2 criteria and automates audits and reporting for compliance.

Omada Identity Cloud and NIS2 Directive compliance

Here are some of the critical ways Omada Identity Cloud drives NIS2 compliance:

Identity Lifecycle Management

Omada Identity Cloud automates identity lifecycle management, ensuring that only authorized users may access vital resources. It addresses the setup, maintenance, and shutdown of user accounts, mitigating the possibility of unwanted access.

Access Control Enforcement

Omada Identity Cloud employs RBAC and regular access evaluations and certification to enforce the principle of least privilege and allow people only to have access to systems and data pertinent to their job and remove access when it is no longer needed.

Detailed Access Logging

Omada Identity Cloud records all access actions and user privilege modifications to prove compliance in case of an audit and detect suspicious activity. Identity Analytics, Omada Identity Cloud’s advanced data analytics platform, also provides a comprehensive, interactive audit trail dashboard that can be used to demonstrate compliance to internal and external auditors.

Separation of Duties

Omada Identity Cloud ensures that users are not granted access permissions that clash with one another by supporting the enforcement of Separation of Duties (SoD) and reducing the risk of insiders misusing internal access. Before submitting a request that could result in SoD, end users are alerted to this violation; approvers are also informed of this violation.

Automated Access and Certification Review

Omada Identity Cloud streamlines compliance verification and guarantees that out-of-date or improper access permissions are addressed quickly.

Scalability to meet growing requirements

The configurability and adaptability that Omada Identity Cloud offers guarantees that organizations can scale access controls seamlessly as they add new users, data, systems, and applications to their IT architectures.

Omada Identity Cloud provides organizations with all the tools necessary to meet NIS2 compliance requirements. Omada Identity Cloud is a next-generation modern IGA-as-a-service platform designed to deliver visibility and control over the identity landscape that your organization needs. Leveraging real-time data processing, Omada Identity Cloud provides unparalleled insights and analytics to streamline the entire identity lifecycle, bolster security, and optimize efficiency. With powerful automation capabilities and a no-code configuration framework, Omada Identity Cloud significantly reduces operational costs while accelerating time-to-value through our 12-week implementation program.

Contact us to learn more.