Achieve NIS2 Compliance with Security Control Validation 

The original 2016 Network and Information Systems (NIS) Directive aimed to build cybersecurity capabilities across the European Union (EU), mitigate threats and ensure the resilience of essential services in key sectors.

While there has been significant progress to date, a review of the Directive uncovered gaps that hinder its ability to effectively address current and emerging cybersecurity challenges. These gaps include a broader threat landscape and more advanced attacks, which are increasingly causing economic disruption and financial losses. In response, the NIS2 Directive was introduced in 2022 to close these gaps and strengthen cybersecurity regulations across the EU. 

The NIS2 Directive mandates that critical infrastructure organizations operating in the EU strengthen their cybersecurity capabilities and policies. Understanding these lengthy NIS2 cybersecurity requirements can be difficult to parse through and understand what exactly you need to focus on to achieve compliance.

To simplify this process, Cymulate has conducted a thorough review and provides a clear, organized summary of the key compliance mandates. By leveraging the Cymulate Exposure Validation Platform, organizations can accelerate their path to adherence, strengthen their overall security posture and reduce the risk of costly non-compliance penalties. 

Understanding the NIS2 Directive 

The NIS2 Directive (EU 2022/2555), replacing the NIS Directive (EU 2016), sets unified criteria for organizations in-scope and enforces strict cybersecurity requirements to promote a high, consistent level of security across the EU. NIS2 requires: 

• Defining national cybersecurity strategies 
• Enhancing cybersecurity capabilities 
• Improving mitigation against threats to networks and information systems 
• Implementing and maintaining vulnerability and risk management cybersecurity policies 
• Applying a proactive cybersecurity approach for preventing, detecting and responding to threats  
• Increasing cybersecurity awareness and maintaining adequate cyber hygiene  
• Advancing cybersecurity education and awareness 

The NIS2 Cybersecurity Directive distinguishes between formal requirements and “areas of encouragement.” Both are critical for defending against today’s evolving threats. 

Accelerate NIS2 Compliance with Cymulate Automated Exposure Validation

Cymulate empowers your organization to meet the following NIS2 cybersecurity compliance requirements and areas of encouragement: 

• Proactive cyber protection 
• Endpoint device security validation 
• Automation and artificial intelligence (AI) 
• Improved threat prevention and detection 
• Increased cybersecurity awareness 
• Risk assessments and vulnerability management 
• Phishing training and awareness 

Scope 

Unlike the original NIS directive, the NIS2 Cybersecurity Directive standardizes its scope by applying to both essential and important entities (see Table 1). All medium and large enterprises operating within the specified sectors are required to comply. Based on exceptional circumstances, some small enterprises are also required to comply.  

Even if your organization does not fall directly into one of these categories, NIS2 encourages all entities to achieve a “high level of cybersecurity given the intensification and increased sophistication of cyber threats”. 

Essential Entities	Important Entities
Energy	Postal and courier services
Transport	Waste management
Banking	Manufacture, production and distribution of chemicals
Financial market infrastructures	Production, processing and distribution of food
Health	Digital providers
Space	Research
Drinking water
Waste water
Digital infrastructure
ICT service management (B2B)
Public administration

 Table 1: Essential and Important Entities 

Non-Compliance Penalties 

Organizations that are in-scope are obligated to meet NIS2 compliance requirements and subject to monetary penalties for non-compliance, specifically for Article 21 (cybersecurity risk management measures) and Article 23 (reporting obligations). Monetary penalties can be significant.  

• Essential entities face a maximum fine of 10M euro or 2% of global annual revenue, whichever is higher 
• Important entities face a maximum fine of 7M euro or 1.4% of global annual revenue, whichever is higher 

In addition, organizations may face non-monetary penalties (compliance orders, security audits, etc.) and criminal sanctions intended to hold C-level executives accountable. 

How Cymulate Helps Organizations Meet NIS2 Compliance Requirements 

Here are the areas where Cymulate can help your organization achieve NIS2 compliance and avoid costly, significant penalties:  

Proactive Cyber Protection

NIS2 promotes organizations to utilize active cyber protection as part of their cybersecurity defensive strategy, specifically for prevention, detection, monitoring, analysis and mitigation of threats. It highlights that a proactive approach to cyber threats is a vital component of cybersecurity risk management. 

Directive Source: Preamble (57, 105); Article 7 (2j) 

Key Cymulate capabilities: 

• Automated security and exposure validation: Run real-world attack scenarios to continuously validate your organization's security controls proactively using the latest threat intelligence to identify gaps in cybersecurity prevention and detection.   
• Drift monitoring and detection: Continuously monitor and detect drift – i.e. changes to security posture in terms of preventing and detecting threats. 
• Prioritized remediations: Correlate threat exposures with security control effectiveness prioritize exploitable threats. 
• Remediation guidance: Optimize security and proactively address exposure with remediation guidance and custom mitigation rules to increase threat detections across endpoint and SIEM security controls.  
• Automated mitigation: Update security controls to immediately block missed threats with integrations that push IOCs directly to the control. 

Endpoint Device Security Validation 

NIS2 requires organizations to enhance their cybersecurity and overall awareness of device risks and develop policies to address the rise of ransomware attacks. It encourages advanced technology integration to improve capabilities and security posture. 

Directive Source: Preamble (50, 54, 89) 

Key Cymulate capabilities: 

• Endpoint device optimization: Integrate with security technologies and conducts automated endpoint device security assessments to test and optimize your organization’s defenses against malicious cyberattacks. The platform allows for identifying risks to endpoint devices and prioritizing remediations.  

Automation and Artificial Intelligence 

NIS2 encourages organizations to use innovative technology with artificial intelligence and automation to improve the detection and prevention of cyberattacks and enhance cybersecurity capabilities. 

Directive Source: Preamble (51, 89) 

Key Cymulate capabilities: 

• Automated security control testing: Safely execute automated real-world attack scenarios to test and validate security controls and improve detection and prevention rates allowing your organization to meet NIS2 cybersecurity requirements. 
• Automated red teaming: Build and scale offensive testing based on a library of attack actions and custom attack scenarios that are chained together for complex attack simulations. 
• AI chatbot: Query the knowledge base chatbot about various platform topics, receive support and find answers to questions regarding system configurations, assessments and troubleshooting. 
• AI template creator: Automate custom threat assessments with an AI-assisted dynamic attack planner that converts threat intel into custom threat assessments on demand. 
• AI insight summary: Gain a quick overview of your security findings with a concise breakdown of critical security insights and reports. 
• AI-powered SIEM rule validation: Map existing SIEM rules to attack scenarios for highly efficient, automated validation of threat detection.  

Improved Threat Detection and Prevention 

With cyber threats becoming more complex and sophisticated, NIS2 emphasizes the importance of good threat detection and prevention and how it largely depends on threat and vulnerability intelligence. Organizations are encouraged to use innovative technologies to improve threat detection and prevention of cyberattacks. 

Directive Source: Preamble (51,119,120) 

Key Cymulate capabilities: 

• Continuous threat validation and intelligence: Validate threat exposures against the latest threat simulations and improve threat detection and prevention capabilities. 
• Threat detection engineering: With automated detection engineering, generate SIEM, EDR and XDR rules for missed detections, enabling security and risk teams to easily and quickly fine-tune and improve threat detections. Additionally, AI-powered mapping aligns existing SIEM rules with attack scenarios to further accelerate rule validation. 

Increased Cybersecurity Awareness 

NIS2 encourages organizations to establish partnerships with industry to increase the sharing of cybersecurity information (early warnings, threat intelligence, etc.). Organizations are required to increase their staff's overall awareness of cybersecurity and increased threats, specifically for small and medium-sized enterprises.   

Directive Source: Preamble (55, 56, 119); Article 7 (1g, 1h, 2f, 2i) 

Key Cymulate capabilities: 

• Cybersecurity posture awareness: Increase overall awareness of cybersecurity by easily viewing the latest threats and identifying critical vulnerabilities across architecture (endpoint, network, SIEM, SOAR, etc.) as well as how to mitigate identified gaps. 
• Industry-leading threat scenario library: Serve as a key partner in the industry by releasing new attack scenarios daily, allowing organizations to utilize the latest threat intelligence to conduct security control validation. 

Risk Assessments and Vulnerability Management 

NIS2 Cybersecurity Directive requires organizations to implement a culture of risk and vulnerability management, proactively and quickly identify and remediate vulnerabilities in network and information systems and take mitigation measures appropriate to the risks faced. In addition, encourages organizations to carry out regular risk-assessments and pursue technology integrations. 

Directive Source: Preamble (58, 76, 77, 96, 97); Article 7 (2c, 2e); Article 21 (2f) 

Key Cymulate capabilities: 

• Prioritize critical risks: With risk quantification and technology integrations enable organizations to make data-informed decisions and focus on mitigating vulnerabilities with the greatest risk. This ensures organizations allocate the proper resources to address their most pressing security concerns. 
• Risk assessments: Regularly conduct self-assessments to assess the effectiveness of security controls, meeting NIS2 risk management requirements. 

Phishing Training and Awareness 

NIS2 requires organizations to train staff and raise awareness of phishing and social engineering techniques, and advance cybersecurity skills. 

Directive Source: Preamble (89); Article 7 (2f); Article 21 (2g) 

Key Cymulate capabilities: 

• Phishing awareness assessments: With Cymulate Phishing Awareness, evaluate and raise awareness of phishing and social engineering techniques by safely simulating phishing attacks and identifying target and training opportunities. 

Cymulate can accelerate your organization in achieving NIS2 requirements and improving your cybersecurity. Learn more about how Cymulate can help by watching this webinar.

Ready to learn how Cymulate can help you navigate NIS2 Compliance and improve your security? Book a demo with Cymulate and see how we can help your team stay compliant, resilient and secure.