White Paper

Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA): from compliance to opportunity

In the digital age, financial sectors confront escalating cyber risks. Reply presents a strategic approach for DORA compliance, shedding light on the EU's Digital Operational Resilience Act to fortify industry stability.

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The need for operational resilience

Financial institutions are navigating a rapidly evolving landscape, driven by technological advancements and digitalization. While these changes present numerous business opportunities, they also expose the sector to heightened cyber threats. The DORA Regulation, enacted by the European Union in December 2022 with a compliance deadline of January 17, 2025, places a paramount focus on strengthening industry-wide resilience.

In this dynamic environment, the regulation seeks to ensure that financial institutions can effectively weather and respond to adverse ICT events and cyber threats, thereby elevating the overall level of cybersecurity across the sector.

The key elements of DORA

ICT risk
management

The legislation highlights the pivotal role of ICT and cyber risk management within financial institutions, outlining responsibilities of the management body and measures in areas like identification, protection, detection, response, recovery, learning, and communication.

ICT-related incidents management, classification and reporting

The Regulation emphasizes the need for incident management processes and provides clear guidelines for reporting, classification, and notification of major incidents. It also encourages information sharing and analysis of cyber threats.

Digital operational
resilience testing

The Regulation underscores the importance of comprehensive resilience testing programs to validate safeguards and response capabilities. Notably, it introduces Threat Led Penetration Tests, advanced simulations of real attacks.

Managing of
ICT third-party risk

Given the increasing significance of ICT service providers, the Regulation specifies requirements for assessing and contracting third parties and introduces a surveillance framework for identified Critical ICT suppliers.

DORA: challenges and opportunities

How to prepare for DORA

Reply's approach to achieving compliance with the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) involves a combined strategy, melding traditional "control-based" assessments with a practical test-based methodology. This hybrid approach allows institutions to thoroughly assess their response capabilities, pinpoint gaps in cyber-attack detection and response, ensure the integrity of business continuity and operational resilience procedures, measure the effectiveness of response processes, and equip their staff with the skills needed to manage real-world cyberattack scenarios. Additionally, establishing a robust Program Management structure and implementing a control framework complete with relevant KPIs is crucial to oversee the program's effectiveness, gauge risk reduction, and ensure DORA compliance across all facets of the organization.