What is NIS2 compliance?
The European NIS2 Directive marks a major shift in the approach to cybersecurity for critical and essential organizations. Unlike the first version of the directive, the goal is no longer solely to prevent cyberattacks, but also to ensure business continuity when an incident occurs.
This new regulation requires the affected companies to implement appropriate risk management, and detect incidents, andcrisis response andbusiness continuity.
For manufacturers, NIS2 compliance therefore represents a paradigm shift: it is no longer enough to simply protect systems; but they must also demonstrate their ability to maintain operations under degraded conditions.
What are the obligations and penalties under NIS2?
The NIS2 Directive requires affected organizations to implement appropriate measures to manage cyber risks and strengthen their resilience. Key requirements include risk management, incident detection and notification, business continuity, incident recovery, and supply chain security.
The directive also strengthens the accountability of executives, who must ensure that cybersecurity measures are effectively implemented within their organization.
In the event of non-compliance, organizations are subject to inspections, and corrective actions and financial penalties that can reach several million euros. Beyond the regulatory aspect, NIS2 aims above all to improve the organizations’ ability to respond to cyberattacks and to maintain their operations in the event of an incident.
How does ANSSI manage NIS2 compliance?
In France, the implementation of the NIS2 Directive is overseen by the National Cybersecurity Agency (ANSSI). Its role is to define the national framework for implementing the directive, to support the organizations concerned, and to ensure compliance with .
ANSSI is responsible, in particular, identifying the relevant entities, publishing cybersecurity standards and recommendations, receiving incident reports, and conducting compliance audits.
To help organizations prepare, ANSSI also provides guides, standards, and practical resources to help them assess their level of maturity and implement the measures required by the directive.
Why is NIS2 compliance a major challenge for industrial environments?
Industrial infrastructure is currently facing a constant increase in cyber threats. The proliferation of connections between IT and OT systems, the shift to the cloud, and remote maintenance are significantly expanding the attack surface.
In this context, cyberattacks no longer seek merely to cause a abrupt halt to production. The most sophisticated scenarios now aim to:
- Modify industrial controls;
- Falsifying monitoring data;
- Hide process deviations;
- Disable or bypass certain alarms;
- Misleading operators about the actual condition of the equipment.
The challenge, then, lies not only in detecting the intrusion, but in the ability to distinguish reliable information from compromised information.
The Limitations of Traditional Approaches to Achieving NIS2 Compliance
Many cybersecurity strategies rely on the data reported by PLCs, SCADA systems, or monitoring tools.
However, when a control system is compromised, that information itself may be tampered with.
An operator can thus observe what appears to be normal operation even though a deviation is already occurring in the field.
This situation poses a significant risk to crisis management:
- incorrect classification of the incident;
- inappropriate operational decisions;
- slowdown in the recovery process;
- potential worsening of the consequences of the attack.
NIS2 compliance specifically requires organizations to strengthen their ability to quickly detect incidents and make decisions based on reliable information.
Why Data Integrity Is Becoming a Cornerstone of NIS2 Compliance
The concept of cyberresilienceintroduced by NIS2 is based on a simple idea: an organization must be capable of continue to operate despite a cyberattack.
To achieve this, it is essential to have a source of truth that is independent of the compromised system.
In industrial environments, this source of truth is found directly at the equipment level: electrical signals, physical controls, and the actual states of sensors and actuators.
Field data analysis allows us to verify that the actions actually performed correspond to the information displayed by the monitoring systems.
This approach offers several benefits:
- Faster detection of anomalies;
- Precise identification of the equipment in question;
- Reduced investigation time;
- Assistance in classifying the incident;
- Maintaining operations under adverse conditions.
Toward an "industrial black box" to meet NIS2 requirements
In aviation, the black box makes it possible to reconstruct events even when the main systems have failed.
Industrial infrastructure today needs a similar mechanism.
The goal is to have an independent layer capable of monitoring raw signals from the field and verify the integrity of operations in real time.
In particular, this approach helps meet several objectives directly related to NIS2 compliance:
- Strengthen detection capabilities;
- Facilitate crisis management;
- Improve the reliability of disaster recovery procedures;
- Improve operational resilience;
- Minimize the impact of cyberattacks on production.
How AIoTrust Helps Ensure NIS2 Compliance
AIoTrust’s Cybervigile technology directly analyzes raw signals from industrial equipment, independently of data processed by PLCs or supervisory control systems.
This approach makes it possible to verify the integrity of commands and measurements as close to the field as possible in order to detect inconsistencies that might go unnoticed in a compromised environment.
By providing an independent view of the actual status of facilities, AIoTrust helps to strengthen capabilities for detection, incident classification, and business continuity required for NIS2 compliance.
Industrial environments are changing fast, and so are the threats they pose. It is necessary to go to the source of data, observe physical reality and detect anomalies where they appear, in the equipment itself.
Only then can manufacturers truly strengthen their resilience in the face of cyber threats.
FAQ - OT cybersecurity
What is the NIS2 Directive?
NIS2 is a European directive aimed at strengthening cybersecurity and the resilience of critical and essential organizations against cyber threats.
Who is affected by NIS2 compliance?
The NIS2 Directive applies to organizations considered to be essential or important to the functioning of the European economy and society. It applies in particular to the energy, water, transportation, healthcare, digital infrastructure, telecommunications, manufacturing, and waste management sectors.
Does NIS2 compliance apply to OT industrial systems?
Yes. OT environments play a central role in ensuring business continuity for industrial organizations and must be integrated into the cybersecurity strategy.
How Can You Improve Your NIS2 Compliance?
To improve its NIS2 compliance, an organization must be able not only to prevent cyberattacks, but also to quickly detect incidents and maintain its operations when a system is compromised.
In industrial settings, this specifically involves:
- Secure IT and OT systems;
- Deploy monitoring and early warning capabilities;
- Implement a business continuity and disaster recovery plan;
- Improve visibility into critical equipment;
- Ensure the reliability of the data used to make operational decisions.
