Though NIS2, the European Union’s up to date Cybersecurity Directive, got here into power in October 2024, many organizations are nonetheless grappling with compliance. As of July 2025, solely 14 out of the 27 EU Member States had transposed the directive into nationwide legislation. And, while NIS2 is an EU regulation, many UK companies with current operations within the EU might face fines or potential authorized repercussions for non-compliance.
NIS2 was initially launched to strengthen the safety posture of ‘important providers’, together with industries akin to transport, monetary providers, and vitality. For these industries, which frequently have legacy techniques in place and a distributed infrastructure, heading off cyberattacks stays a major problem.
Though NIS2, the European Union’s up to date Cybersecurity Directive, got here into power in October 2024, many organizations are nonetheless grappling with compliance. As of July 2025, solely 14 out of the 27 EU Member States had transposed the directive into nationwide legislation. And, while NIS2 is an EU regulation, many UK companies with current operations within the EU might face fines or potential authorized repercussions for non-compliance.
NIS2 was initially launched to strengthen the safety posture of ‘important providers’, together with industries akin to transport, monetary providers, and vitality. For these industries, which frequently have legacy techniques in place and a distributed infrastructure, heading off cyberattacks stays a major problem.
Senior Vice President for EMEA at SailPoint.
The dangers of sidelining NIS2 compliance
IT strategists will possible discover themselves underneath elevated strain following the introduction of NIS2. They’ll be tasked with efficiently imposing the Directive successfully throughout the enterprise while juggling the rollout of recent applied sciences within the period of AI. While it may be tempting to prioritize the deployment of recent merchandise and initiatives, sidelining NIS2 compliance might lead to expensive fines, in addition to vital reputational harm to the enterprise.
One key requirement outlined by NIS2 is that organizations should be capable to exhibit that they’ve sturdy entry management insurance policies in place. This consists of the power to restrict entry to networks and techniques based mostly on consumer roles and obligations. With out the power to automate entry controls, organizations stay reliant on spreadsheets software program, e mail or paper trails to handle permissions.
These guide processes are sometimes topic to human error, with permissions not being up to date promptly when workers change roles, go away the corporate, or when contractors’ tasks finish. Customers and ex-employees retain entry to delicate techniques and information lengthy after they want it.
This considerably will increase the chance of insider threats – whether or not unintended, with dormant consumer accounts focused by cyber criminals, or intentional, akin to a disgruntled worker or ex-employees stealing, destroying or altering firm data for private achieve. Companies and public sector organizations must be taking insider threats severely, which constituted virtually half of breaches (49%) inside EMEA organizations in 2024.
Seamlessly managing the identification lifecycle by way of automation
Fortunately, the instruments can be found immediately to help organizations to realize compliance with NIS2 and guarantee better information safety on the identical time. Automated identification administration instruments make it simpler than ever for organizations to seamlessly handle the complete identification lifecycle, from onboarding to offboarding.
Think about a monetary advisor is introduced in on a short lived contract at a significant financial institution to cowl for a colleague on go away. The advisor ought to solely be capable to entry the particular shopper accounts and monetary data essential for his or her task. By means of a tailor-made function and entry profile, they could obtain momentary permissions to view choose shopper portfolios or transaction histories. Nonetheless, they’d be left with out administrative system privileges, for instance, entry to inside audit logs, government dashboards or regulatory compliance reviews to reduce threat.
After a selected timeframe (the shut of the contract), the advisor would not be capable to entry shopper data or firm techniques. This idea, ‘Simply-in-time privilege’, operationalizes zero belief by granting entry based mostly on real-time wants, revoking it as soon as duties are full. Entry stays role-specific and is granted or rescinded when workers are onboarded or offboarded. Offboarding processes which might be fast, seamless, and safe are quick changing into a ‘must-have’ for UK employers; significantly for organizations that have excessive workers turnover.
A ‘single pane of glass’ overview of entry permissions
Alongside role-based entry, NIS2 requires companies which offer ‘important providers’ to obviously doc and preserve a file of consumer entry permissions. This consists of, however isn’t restricted to, vitality, transport, monetary providers, and digital infrastructure.
Manually reviewing and collating a file of current permissions throughout a corporation can show to be an extremely time-consuming process, in addition to a major drain on IT and safety workforce assets. Id safety platforms eradicate the necessity to manually doc and seek for an inventory of entry permissions.
IT groups can simply view the variety of customers with privileged entry by way of an interactive dashboard, in addition to a file of excellent entry evaluation duties. This ‘single pane of glass’ overview makes it potential for organizations to simply evaluation historic entry modifications and perceive which admins granted or revoked entry, and when.
Importantly, visualization by way of a dashboard equips organizations with the power to showcase and exhibit compliance with NIS2 throughout regulatory inspections. Dashboard information is up to date in real-time, offering a single supply of reality by bringing collectively information throughout a fancy community of suppliers, contractors, and different third events working inside a corporation’s provide chain.
NIS2: a name to motion for organizations within the UK
Companies may be tempted to view NIS2 as a tedious ‘box-ticking’ train in compliance. However NIS2 ought to as a substitute be seen as a significant alternative: a catalyst for companies to strengthen their cybersecurity posture and future-proof their operations.
Closing the compliance hole would possibly seem to be a frightening prospect for IT strategists, who’re already underneath strain to make high-stakes choices in regards to the adoption and integration of recent applied sciences amidst the AI increase. Nonetheless, options akin to identification safety platforms may help to alleviate a few of this strain by equipping IT leaders with a 360 overview throughout the complete provide chain.
These identification instruments are important for companies that want to watch and handle complicated entry permissions, together with third events, with better accuracy and management. In a local weather the place enterprise success is more and more depending on digital providers, automated identification and entry controls should type the cornerstone for each group’s cybersecurity technique.
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