DORA Compliance Consulting

Digital Operational Resilience Act – DORA Compliance, Gap Analysis, ICT Risk Management and Digital Operational Resilience Consulting

In the financial sector, cyber security no longer means simply protecting information systems.

Banks, payment institutions, electronic money institutions, insurers, investment firms, financial technology companies and other financial organisations operate within an increasingly complex digital ecosystem.

Cloud services, API integrations, outsourced service providers, data centres, telecoms infrastructure, payment systems, mobile applications, third-party software and critical ICT services have become an inseparable part of financial services.

While this structure delivers operational efficiency, it also creates a new risk:

digital operational resilience risk.

A cyber attack, a ransomware incident, a cloud outage, a critical software fault or a problem at a third-party service provider can all leave a financial institution unable to serve its customers.

The European Union therefore created the Digital Operational Resilience Act – DORA in order to strengthen the financial sector's resilience against disruption arising from information and communication technology.

SecureSys provides end-to-end DORA compliance consulting to help financial institutions understand the DORA requirements, measure their current position, identify compliance gaps and build a sustainable digital operational resilience structure.

Our DORA consulting approach does not focus solely on turning the articles of the regulation into documentation.

The organisation's:

governance + ICT risk management + cyber security + incident management + business continuity + disaster recovery + resilience testing + third-party management

are assessed together.

The aim is not merely to be able to say "we are DORA compliant", but to build an operational resilience model that keeps financial services running during a real cyber attack or technology outage.

What Is DORA?

DORA – the Digital Operational Resilience Act is the regulatory framework created to strengthen the European Union financial sector's resilience against risks arising from information and communication technology.

DORA's official regulation number is:

Regulation (EU) 2022/2554

DORA aims to have financial institutions manage the risks arising from their ICT systems systematically and to sustain their critical services in the face of serious technology disruption.

Treating DORA as a cyber security regulation alone would therefore be incomplete.

DORA is a digital operational resilience regulation that addresses many areas together, including:

• ICT risk management,
• Business continuity,
• Cyber security,
• Incident management,
• Disaster recovery,
• Resilience testing,
• Supplier management,
• Cloud risks,
• Third-party ICT services

When Did DORA Come Into Force?

DORA was adopted by the European Union and has applied since 17 January 2025.

DORA is therefore no longer a regulation that will apply at some point in the future.

Financial institutions need to assess their existing operations against the DORA requirements and establish the necessary compliance mechanisms.

DORA aims for a more common and harmonised approach to managing ICT risk across the financial sector.

What Is DORA Compliance Consulting?

DORA compliance consulting is the process of assessing a financial institution's existing ICT risk management and digital operational resilience structure against the DORA requirements and carrying out the necessary improvements.

SecureSys DORA consulting assesses the organisation's:

• Organisational structure,
• ICT risk management,
• Cyber security controls,
• Information assets,
• Critical applications,
• ICT third parties,
• Incident management processes,
• Business continuity infrastructure,
• Disaster recovery structure,
• Backup system,
• Security monitoring capabilities,
• Testing programmes

as a whole.

What Is DORA's Purpose?

Financial institutions are extremely dependent on their technology systems.

If a payment institution's core processing platform stops, for example, customers may be unable to make payments.

An outage in a bank's mobile banking infrastructure can affect millions of customers.

Disruption to the trading platform at an investment firm can cause financial losses.

An insurer being unable to reach its critical applications can bring operations to a halt.

DORA's fundamental objective is therefore this:

that financial institutions become digitally resilient enough to sustain their critical services even during serious ICT disruption.

What Is Digital Operational Resilience?

Digital operational resilience is a financial institution's ability to preserve its operational integrity, sustain its services and return safely to normal in the face of ICT-driven disruption or attack.

This approach is broader than classic cyber security.

Where cyber security largely concerns preventing and detecting attacks, digital operational resilience asks:

"If the attack succeeds, or a critical system fails, can the organisation keep operating?"

Genuine resilience therefore requires the approach:

Protect + Detect + Respond + Recover + Continue

Who Does DORA Cover?

DORA covers a very broad group of financial institutions.

Many financial organisations can fall within scope, depending on the type of institution and the applicable provisions.

These generally include different actors across the financial ecosystem such as:

• Credit institutions,
• Banks,
• Payment institutions,
• Electronic money institutions,
• Investment firms,
• Crypto-asset service providers,
• Central securities depositories,
• Central counterparties,
• Trading venues,
• Insurance companies,
• Reinsurance undertakings,
• Insurance intermediaries,
• Pension institutions,
• Fund management companies,
• Alternative investment fund managers,
• Credit rating agencies

An institution's precise obligations under DORA should be assessed separately according to its activity and regulatory status.

DORA's Five Core Components

To make DORA compliance work easier to understand, the regulation can be assessed under five main headings.

1. ICT Risk Management

Management of information and communication technology risks.

2. ICT Incident Management and Reporting

Management, classification and, where required, reporting of ICT-related incidents.

3. Digital Operational Resilience Testing

Regular testing of digital operational resilience.

4. ICT Third-Party Risk Management

Management of the third-party risks arising from ICT service providers.

5. Information Sharing

Sharing of cyber threat and security information under defined conditions.

Together, these areas form the organisation's overall DORA compliance structure.

1. ICT Risk Management

One of DORA's most fundamental sections is the ICT risk management framework.

Financial institutions need to make technology risk part of enterprise risk management.

ICT risk management should not be the responsibility of the IT department alone.

Senior management and the management body must also have clear roles and responsibilities for managing ICT risk.

SecureSys DORA consulting assesses the existing ICT risk management structure.

Areas such as the following can be analysed:

• ICT risk policy,
• Risk assessment,
• Asset management,
• Access management,
• Network security,
• Vulnerability management,
• Patch management,
• Change management,
• Logging,
• Monitoring,
• Incident response,
• Backup,
• Disaster recovery

DORA and Management Responsibility

One of DORA's important themes is accountability at management level.

Leaving ICT risk to technical teams alone is not sufficient.

Management needs to:

• Understand the ICT risks,
• Approve the policies,
• Define roles and responsibilities,
• Allocate resources,
• Track the risks,
• Monitor critical ICT providers,
• Assess business continuity and recovery capacity

Establishing the governance structure is therefore as important as technical improvement in DORA projects.

The DORA ICT Risk Management Framework

An effective ICT risk management framework has to address the organisation's technology infrastructure as a whole.

The SecureSys consulting approach can use the following lifecycle:

Identify → Protect → Prevent → Detect → Respond → Recover → Learn

This approach focuses not only on preventing ICT risk but on managing it effectively when it materialises.

ICT Asset Management

One of the fundamental points of DORA compliance is that the organisation knows its ICT assets.

An organisation that does not know which systems it owns cannot manage the risks of those systems.

A comprehensive ICT asset inventory therefore has to be established.

The inventory can include:

• Servers,
• Network devices,
• Databases,
• Business applications,
• SaaS services,
• Cloud resources,
• Security systems,
• APIs,
• Endpoint devices,
• Critical software

Keeping a device list alone is not sufficient, however.

The relationship between assets and business processes also has to be assessed.

Critical or Important Functions

One of the important concepts under DORA is the critical or important function.

Not every system is equally critical.

The critical systems and the ICT services supporting them have to be identified.

The following, for example, may support critical business functions:

• Payment systems,
• Mobile banking,
• Internet banking,
• Trading platforms,
• Core banking,
• Authentication infrastructure

The disruption tolerance of these systems can differ from that of others.

Identifying System Dependencies

An application does not run on its own.

Behind it there may be many dependencies such as:

• Active Directory,
• Databases,
• Network,
• DNS,
• Firewall,
• Load balancer,
• Cloud services,
• APIs,
• Storage,
• Backup

A DORA assessment therefore has to analyse not only the critical application but the entire technology chain supporting it.

DORA Gap Analysis

A DORA gap analysis compares a financial institution's existing digital operational resilience structure against the DORA requirements.

The SecureSys gap analysis examines existing practice and identifies the gaps.

The analysis can produce a DORA compliance roadmap structured as:

Current State → Gap → Risk → Action → Owner → Target Date

What Is Examined in a DORA Gap Analysis?

A DORA gap analysis can assess the following headings:

Governance

Management responsibilities and the ICT risk governance structure.

ICT risk management

Risk management policies and processes.

Asset management

The ICT asset inventory and critical asset classification.

Identity and access management

User and privileged account management.

Network security

Network segmentation, firewalls and security architecture.

Vulnerability management

Detection and remediation of vulnerabilities.

Incident management

Management of ICT incidents.

Business continuity

The ability to sustain critical services.

Disaster recovery

The recovery capacity of the systems.

Resilience testing

Security and operational resilience testing.

Third-party risk management

The risks arising from ICT service providers.

2. ICT Incident Management

DORA expects financial institutions to manage ICT-related incidents systematically.

When a security incident occurs, applying a technical fix alone is not sufficient.

The incident has to be:

detected → classified → responded to → escalated → reported → investigated for root cause

An effective ICT incident management framework therefore has to be established.

What Is an ICT Incident?

An ICT incident can include unplanned events that affect the security of network and information systems and may have an adverse effect on the:

• Availability,
• Authenticity,
• Integrity,
• Confidentiality

of services or data.

These are not only cyber attacks.

Technical faults or technology outages can also constitute ICT incidents.

DORA Incident Classification

Not every ICT incident carries the same level of significance.

Incidents therefore have to be classified according to their impact and importance.

Classification can take into account factors such as:

• The number of customers affected,
• The duration of the disruption,
• Geographical spread,
• Data impact,
• Financial impact,
• Impact on critical services

Regulatory notification obligations can apply for major ICT incidents.

DORA Incident Reporting

One of DORA's important requirements is the major ICT-related incident reporting process.

Financial institutions may need to classify significant ICT incidents and report them to the relevant authorities according to the defined requirements.

Rather than attempting to gather information from scratch after an incident, a predefined incident reporting procedure should therefore be established.

SecureSys can prepare:

• Incident classification matrix,
• Incident reporting procedure,
• Escalation matrix,
• Incident response playbook

DORA and the SOC

A Security Operations Centre can strengthen the detect and respond capabilities that matter particularly for DORA compliance.

Through a SOC:

• Logs can be collected,
• Security alerts can be monitored,
• Attacks can be detected,
• Incident escalation can be carried out,
• Threat hunting can be performed.

The existence of a SOC alone, however, does not mean DORA compliance.

SOC processes have to be related to the critical financial functions.

SIEM and DORA

SIEM platforms can be important for increasing incident visibility under DORA.

Collecting logs alone is not sufficient, however.

What matters is:

• Identifying the critical log sources,
• Building the right detection use cases,
• Defining alert SLAs,
• Ensuring the incident response processes work.

SecureSys DORA consulting can also assess the organisation's SIEM/SOC maturity separately.

3. Digital Operational Resilience Testing

One of DORA's core principles is that security controls are not merely designed but tested.

It is not enough for an organisation to say:

"We have a backup system."

"We use a firewall."

"We have prepared an incident response plan."

It has to be verified that these systems genuinely work.

A digital operational resilience testing programme therefore has to be established under DORA.

DORA Resilience Testing

Different testing methods can be used according to the organisation's risk profile.

For example:

• Vulnerability assessment
• Network security assessment
• Configuration review
• Vulnerability scanning
• Penetration testing
• Scenario-based testing
• Disaster recovery testing
• Backup restore testing
• Tabletop exercises
• Red team
• Purple team

can all be parts of a resilience testing programme.

DORA Penetration Testing

Penetration testing can be used in DORA compliance to verify the organisation's security level technically.

The test scope can include:

• External penetration testing,
• Internal network penetration testing,
• Web application testing,
• Mobile application testing,
• API testing,
• Active Directory testing,
• Cloud security testing

Tests have to be planned according to risk level and carried out in a way that does not adversely affect critical systems.

What Is TLPT?

One of the concepts that stands out under DORA is Threat-Led Penetration Testing – TLPT.

TLPT offers a more advanced approach than classic penetration testing.

The test is carried out taking real-world attacker behaviour and threat intelligence into account.

The aim is not simply to find vulnerabilities.

It is to assess the organisation's:

Prevent → Detect → Respond

capabilities against realistic attack scenarios.

The Relationship Between TLPT and Red Teaming

TLPT resembles red team work in some respects.

Where a traditional penetration test looks for vulnerabilities on defined systems, threat-led testing can simulate an attacker following a genuine attack chain.

A scenario such as the following, for example, can be assessed:

Phishing → Credential Theft → Initial Access → Lateral Movement → Privilege Escalation → Critical System Access

This approach allows SOC, EDR, SIEM, IAM and incident response mechanisms to be tested together.

DORA and Threat Intelligence

To carry out realistic resilience testing, it is important to understand the threats the organisation faces.

Threat intelligence allows assessment of:

• Attacker groups targeting the sector,
• The attack techniques used,
• Current phishing methods,
• Malware families,
• Exploit trends

This information can contribute to building threat-led testing scenarios under DORA.

Business Continuity and DORA

DORA does not aim solely at preventing attacks.

Financial institutions have to be able to sustain their critical functions during ICT disruption.

Business continuity management is therefore a critical topic for DORA.

Business continuity should assess:

• Critical processes,
• RTO,
• RPO,
• Business continuity plans,
• Alternative systems,
• Crisis management

DORA and RTO

Recovery Time Objective – RTO expresses how quickly a critical system or service has to be brought back into operation after disruption.

The RTO target for critical payment infrastructure, for example, may be lower than for other administrative systems.

RTO values should be determined together with the business units and technology teams.

DORA and RPO

Recovery Point Objective – RPO expresses the acceptable level of data loss.

In a system with an RPO of 15 minutes, for example, the loss of the last 15 minutes of data has been assessed as being within the acceptable risk boundary.

The RPO value directly affects the backup and replication architecture.

DORA and Disaster Recovery

Having disaster recovery infrastructure in place can be important for DORA.

Its mere existence, however, is not sufficient.

The following questions have to be answered:

• Does DR genuinely work?
• Has failover been tested?
• Are all critical systems present in DR?
• Is replication working?
• Can users reach the DR systems?
• Is the failback process defined?

Regular disaster recovery testing therefore has to be carried out.

Backup and DORA

In modern ransomware attacks, one of the attackers' targets is the backup systems.

Backup security is therefore critically important for digital operational resilience.

The assessment can examine controls such as:

• Immutable backup,
• Offline backup,
• Backup encryption,
• Separate admin accounts,
• MFA,
• Restore testing,
• Network segmentation

4. ICT Third-Party Risk Management

One of DORA's most critical headings is ICT third-party risk management.

Financial institutions have made a significant part of their operations dependent on external service providers.

Third-party services in use can include:

• Cloud,
• SaaS,
• Data centres,
• Telecoms,
• Security services,
• Managed SOC,
• Software providers,
• Payment infrastructure

Serious disruption at one of these suppliers can directly affect the financial institution's operations.

DORA Supplier Risk Management

SecureSys DORA consulting can identify the critical ICT suppliers and classify them on a risk basis.

A classification such as:

Critical / High / Medium / Low

can be used.

Rather than applying the same level of control to every supplier, stricter controls can be applied to providers delivering critical services.

The ICT Third-Party Register of Information

Recording ICT third-party relationships systematically is an important requirement under DORA.

The organisation needs to know which ICT service it takes from which provider.

A register of information can assess:

• Supplier,
• Service,
• Contract,
• The business function supported,
• Criticality,
• Subcontractors,
• Data location,
• Service location

DORA Contractual Requirements

Contracts with ICT service providers have to be assessed from a DORA perspective.

Depending on need, contracts may have to include clauses covering:

• Information security responsibilities,
• SLA,
• Incident notification,
• Audit rights,
• Data access,
• Data return,
• Business continuity,
• Exit rights,
• Termination,
• Subcontractor requirements

A DORA compliance project should therefore not be run with the IT and security teams alone.

Involving procurement and legal in the process is important.

ICT Concentration Risk

A financial institution tying all of its critical services to a single technology provider creates a new risk.

This can be assessed under ICT concentration risk.

If many critical systems run at the same cloud provider, for example, a major outage there can affect several of the organisation's services at once.

Concentration risk therefore has to be examined as part of third-party risk assessment.

Cloud and DORA

Cloud services deliver significant operational advantages for financial institutions.

Using cloud does not mean, however, that the risks have been transferred entirely to the cloud provider.

The financial institution continues to manage its own responsibilities in areas such as:

• Cloud IAM,
• Security configuration,
• Logging,
• Encryption,
• Backup,
• Data location,
• Incident management,
• Business continuity,
• Exit strategy

DORA cloud risk assessment is therefore an important area of work.

Cloud Exit Strategy

One of the matters to assess for critical cloud services is the exit strategy.

When a service provider becomes unusable or a contract has to be terminated, the organisation must be able to move its data and systems to another infrastructure.

The following therefore have to be planned in advance:

• Data portability,
• Migration plan,
• Alternative provider,
• Data return,
• Secure deletion

Critical ICT Third-Party Providers

DORA has also established a Europe-wide oversight mechanism for critical ICT third-party service providers.

Certain ICT providers designated as critical can be subject to more direct assessment by the European Supervisory Authorities.

This structure is particularly relevant to the large cloud and technology companies that provide critical technology services to many financial institutions.

DORA and Supply Chain Security

DORA does not assess third-party risk as limited to the direct supplier alone.

The subcontractors the supplier uses can also create risk.

The chain:

Organisation → ICT Provider → Subcontractor → Technology Dependency

therefore has to be assessed.

Subcontractor visibility becomes particularly important for critical services.

5. Information Sharing

DORA provides mechanisms for financial institutions to share cyber threat and security information under defined conditions.

The aim is for the financial sector to be able to develop defences against common threats more quickly.

The information that can be shared includes:

• Indicators of compromise,
• Threat actor behaviour,
• Attack techniques,
• Security alerts,
• Defensive methods

Confidentiality and data protection requirements have to be taken into account when sharing information.

The Difference Between DORA and ISO 27001

ISO/IEC 27001 and DORA are not the same thing.

ISO 27001 is an information security management system standard.

DORA is a regulatory operational resilience framework for the European financial sector.

Holding ISO 27001 does not automatically deliver DORA compliance.

Many of the processes within ISO 27001, however, can form a strong foundation for DORA compliance work:

• Risk management,
• Asset management,
• Access control,
• Supplier security,
• Incident management,
• Business continuity

DORA and ISO 22301

ISO 22301 is the business continuity management system standard.

There are significant relationships between ISO 22301 and DORA's requirements on:

• Business continuity,
• ICT continuity,
• Recovery,
• Crisis management,
• Testing

The existing processes of organisations using ISO 22301 can therefore be assessed within DORA compliance.

DORA and the NIST CSF

The NIST Cybersecurity Framework is a strong cyber security framework that can support DORA's technical and operational requirements.

The structure of NIST CSF 2.0:

Govern → Identify → Protect → Detect → Respond → Recover

overlaps with DORA's ICT risk management and resilience approach at many points.

Using the NIST CSF alone, however, does not mean DORA compliance.

The Difference Between DORA and NIS2

DORA and NIS2 are two important European Union regulations strengthening cyber security.

NIS2 introduces cyber security requirements for a much broader group of critical and important sectors, whereas DORA focuses specifically on the digital operational resilience of the financial sector.

For financial institutions, the scope of and relationship between the relevant regulations should be assessed on an organisation-specific basis.

How Does the DORA Compliance Process Work?

SecureSys DORA consulting projects are tailored to the organisation's size and area of activity, but generally consist of the following stages.

1. Scope Analysis

The organisation's obligations under DORA are assessed.

2. DORA Gap Analysis

The current state is compared against the requirements of the regulation.

3. ICT Asset Inventory

Critical information systems and technology assets are identified.

4. Critical Function Mapping

Critical functions and technology dependencies are analysed.

5. ICT Risk Assessment

Technology risks are assessed.

6. Governance Model

Roles, responsibilities and the management structure are established.

7. ICT Risk Management Framework

The risk management structure is developed.

8. Incident Management

The ICT incident management and reporting process is established.

9. Business Continuity and DR

Recovery capabilities are assessed.

10. Resilience Testing

A resilience testing programme is established.

11. Third-Party Risk Management

ICT suppliers are assessed.

12. Contract Review

Critical ICT contracts are analysed.

13. Register of Information

The third-party service inventory is established.

14. Training and Awareness

The relevant teams are briefed on the DORA processes.

15. Review and Reassessment

The implementation status of the actions is assessed.

DORA Consulting Deliverables

Depending on project scope, SecureSys can prepare the following deliverables:

• DORA Gap Analysis Report
• DORA Compliance Matrix
• DORA Roadmap
• ICT Risk Management Framework
• ICT Risk Policy
• ICT Risk Register
• Critical Function Inventory
• ICT Asset Inventory
• ICT Dependency Mapping
• Incident Management Procedure
• Incident Classification Matrix
• Incident Reporting Procedure
• Cyber Incident Response Plan
• Business Continuity Assessment
• Disaster Recovery Assessment
• RTO/RPO Matrix
• Digital Operational Resilience Testing Plan
• Penetration Testing Plan
• TLPT Readiness Assessment
• ICT Third-Party Risk Policy
• ICT Vendor Risk Assessment
• Register of Information
• ICT Contract Gap Analysis
• Cloud Risk Assessment
• ICT Concentration Risk Assessment
• Exit Strategy
• Management Dashboard
• DORA Compliance Action Plan

DORA Maturity Assessment

Assessing DORA only as "compliant / non-compliant" may not be sufficient for management.

SecureSys can also assess the areas at a maturity level where required.

For example, the model:

1 – Initial 2 – Developing 3 – Defined 4 – Managed 5 – Optimised

can be used.

The organisation can then see not only which controls are missing but also where it needs to reach a higher level of maturity.

DORA Executive Dashboard

It is not realistic for senior management to follow dozens of pages of technical reporting continuously.

DORA findings can therefore be presented in an executive dashboard format.

Visibility can be provided in the form of:

ICT Governance – 78% ICT Risk Management – 72% Incident Management – 68% Resilience Testing – 61% Business Continuity – 74% Third-Party Risk – 56%

Alongside these scores, the following must also be shown:

• Critical risks,
• Open actions,
• Overdue actions,
• Owners,
• Risk trends

The DORA Action Roadmap

A gap analysis can produce hundreds of actions.

Carrying them all out at once may not be possible.

SecureSys can therefore prioritise the actions on a risk basis.

Immediate / critical

Gaps creating regulatory or serious operational risk.

0–3 months

High-risk matters that need to be closed quickly.

3–6 months

Process and technical infrastructure improvements.

6–12 months

Major security or resilience transformation projects.

Strategic

Long-term programmes such as cloud diversification, Zero Trust, SOC transformation or wide-ranging DR transformation.

The Most Common Mistakes in DORA Consulting

One of the significant mistakes made during DORA compliance is treating the regulation as a documentation project alone.

Policies do have to be prepared, but they also have to have a counterpart in the technical systems.

For example:

if a policy states "privileged access is controlled", it must be possible to see how PAM or equivalent access controls are applied.

If it states "backups are restored", restore test records must exist.

If it states "third-party risk is assessed", vendor assessment evidence must exist.

If it states "incident response is tested", the records of the exercises carried out must be available.

DORA's fundamental approach is this:

Document → Apply → Evidence → Test → Measure → Improve

How Do You Prepare for DORA Supervision?

DORA compliance has to be managed as a continuous process.

Preparation should begin with a current-state analysis.

The following should then be assessed together:

• Policies,
• Technical controls,
• Process records,
• Test results,
• Incident records,
• Vendor records,
• Contracts,
• Risk records,
• Management reporting

Tidying up procedures alone does not deliver genuine operational resilience.

Technical Security Controls in DORA Compliance

Although DORA takes a technology-neutral approach, many security technologies can support compliance work.

Examples include:

• SIEM
• SOC
• EDR
• XDR
• NDR
• PAM
• IAM
• MFA
• NAC
• DLP
• Vulnerability management
• Backup
• Disaster recovery
• WAF
• Network security
• Threat intelligence

DORA compliance is not achieved by purchasing a particular product, however.

The products have to be used within the right process and governance model.

DORA and Zero Trust

A Zero Trust security approach can contribute to reducing DORA's identity and access risks.

The core principle of Zero Trust can be summarised as:

never trust, always verify

Controls such as MFA, device posture, least privilege, PAM and micro-segmentation can improve the security of access to critical systems.

DORA and Active Directory

Active Directory is the critical identity infrastructure in many financial institutions.

If AD is compromised, an attacker can reach a large number of systems.

Controls such as the following should therefore be assessed:

• Domain Admin usage,
• Service accounts,
• Privileged users,
• MFA,
• Legacy protocols,
• Logging,
• Tiering,
• Identity detection

DORA and Ransomware

Ransomware attacks are one of the important scenarios showing why DORA is necessary.

In a ransomware attack, an organisation can:

• Lose its systems,
• Lose its data,
• Lose its backup systems,
• Be unable to serve its customers.

Ransomware resilience therefore has to be addressed as:

Prevent + Detect + Respond + Recover

DORA Ransomware Readiness Assessment

SecureSys can carry out a ransomware readiness assessment alongside DORA work.

By assessing:

• EDR/XDR,
• Active Directory,
• Privileged accounts,
• Network segmentation,
• Backup security,
• SOC,
• Incident response,
• Disaster recovery

the organisation's real resilience against a ransomware attack can be measured.

Why SecureSys for DORA Compliance Consulting?

Running DORA consulting from a legal or GRC perspective alone is not sufficient.

A significant part of DORA concerns real ICT and cyber security operations.

The consulting team therefore has to be able to assess the following areas together:

GRC + cyber security + penetration testing + SOC + network + cloud + IAM + backup + disaster recovery + business continuity

The SecureSys DORA consulting approach assesses the regulatory requirements and the real technology infrastructure within the same framework.

The aim is to produce not merely a "compliance document" but a genuine digital operational resilience model.

Our approach is based on the model:

Measure → Identify the Risks → Prioritise → Establish the Controls → Test → Evidence → Improve Continuously

Frequently Asked Questions

What is DORA?

DORA is the abbreviation for the Digital Operational Resilience Act. It is Regulation (EU) 2022/2554, which strengthens the digital operational resilience of the European Union financial sector against ICT risk.

When did DORA start to apply?

DORA has applied since 17 January 2025.

Who does DORA cover?

Banks, payment institutions, electronic money institutions, investment firms, insurers and many other financial organisations can fall within DORA's scope. The precise scope should be assessed according to the institution's activity and regulatory status.

What is DORA compliance consulting?

It is the assessment and development of an organisation's ICT risk management, incident management, resilience testing, business continuity and third-party risk management structure against the DORA requirements.

What is a DORA gap analysis?

It is the identification of the differences between an organisation's existing digital operational resilience structure and the DORA requirements.

What is ICT risk management?

It is the process by which an organisation systematically identifies, assesses and manages the risks arising from its information and communication technology.

What is DORA incident reporting?

It is the process of classifying significant ICT incidents meeting defined criteria under DORA and notifying them through the relevant regulatory mechanisms.

What is TLPT?

Threat-Led Penetration Testing is an advanced, threat-focused penetration testing approach that takes the methods of real threat actors into account.

Is penetration testing mandatory under DORA?

DORA provides for digital operational resilience testing programmes. The scope of the tests to be applied should be determined according to the organisation's risk profile and the relevant DORA requirements. Advanced TLPT requirements can also arise separately for certain financial institutions.

Are DORA and ISO 27001 the same?

No. ISO 27001 is an information security management system standard. DORA is a digital operational resilience regulation for the financial sector.

Does an ISO 27001 certificate deliver DORA compliance?

Not on its own. Many of the security processes established under ISO 27001 can, however, form an important foundation for DORA compliance work.

Can DORA and ISO 22301 be used together?

Yes. The business continuity and crisis management processes of ISO 22301 can support DORA's operational resilience requirements.

What is ICT third-party risk?

It is the technology and operational risk arising from a financial institution's cloud, software, data centre or other ICT service providers.

What is the DORA register of information?

It is the information inventory approach through which financial institutions record their ICT third-party service relationships systematically.

Does DORA cover cloud providers?

Cloud services are one of the important areas within the scope of ICT third-party services. Financial institutions have to manage the ICT risks relating to their cloud providers.

Is there a DORA certificate?

DORA is not a management system certification standard in the classic sense, as ISO standards are. DORA is a European Union regulation. Organisations can carry out a DORA compliance assessment and gap analysis, but there is no standard certification approach in the form of a "DORA certificate issued by the EU".

Strengthen Your Digital Operational Resilience With DORA

DORA compliance is not simply a matter of meeting the articles of a regulation.

The real question is this:

Is your organisation genuinely ready for serious ICT disruption?

Do you know your critical systems?

Have you mapped your technology dependencies?

Could you sustain your critical services during a ransomware attack?

Can your SOC detect the attack in time?

Can your backups genuinely be restored after an attack?

Has your DR environment been tested?

If your critical cloud or technology provider cannot deliver, do you have an alternative?

Can you classify ICT incidents?

Are your regulatory notification processes ready?

Have you verified your defensive capacity through TLPT or resilience testing?

The answers to these questions show your real level of digital operational resilience.

SecureSys addresses DORA compliance consulting, DORA gap analysis, ICT risk management, digital operational resilience testing, TLPT readiness, ICT third-party risk management, incident management, business continuity and disaster recovery within a single compliance programme.

Determine Your Current Compliance Level With a DORA Gap Analysis

Don't begin DORA compliance work by trying to apply hundreds of controls at once.

Measure your current level first.

Identify your critical functions. See your ICT risks. Prioritise the gaps. Apply the controls. Test your resilience.

Request a DORA Compliance Consulting and Gap Analysis Proposal

To assess your financial institution's current DORA compliance level, identify your critical ICT risks and build a DORA roadmap tailored to your organisation, get in touch with the SecureSys team.

Turn DORA compliance into a genuine digital operational resilience programme rather than a regulatory project.

Start with a DORA gap analysis. See your risk, measure your resilience and secure your digital operations.