The DORA effect: building a strong Digital Operational Resilience Act foundation

A single misstep, whether intentional or accidental, can jeopardise your organisation’s security posture and regulatory compliance status. As the enforcement phase of the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) looms large, the need for a robust and resilient infrastructure has never been more critical.

Learn how to meet, maintain, and prove compliance with the arrival of DORA

Financial institutions and the organisations that support them may already have aspects of DORA covered through compliance with other regulations, like the GDPR. But where do you start with DORA, and how do you manage it efficiently in perpetuity?

I often compare compliance and security to a game of Jenga: you need a rock-solid foundation to make sure the entire structure stays upright, and one small inadvertent or unplanned change can quickly transform the tower into a pile of rubble. With enforcement now on the horizon, you don’t want to be even a single step behind. The best way to do that is by establishing a strong foundational structure.

Before you start implementing DORA technical mandates, you need to understand how you will meet, maintain, and prove compliance. I’d recommend starting by adopting a governance, risk, and compliance framework that outlines the necessary security and compliance initiatives.

Building a strong foundation for DORA compliance

Secure and resilient infrastructure is the cornerstone of DORA compliance. By transforming DORA’s technology requirements into policy as code, you can streamline your compliance efforts and ensure consistency across the entire estate.

Policy as code provides centralised policy management – your code exists in a repository that can be updated and distributed quickly when needed. Many of DORA’s mandates can be turned into policy as code, from role-based access control to data management.

Once your policy has been coded, you can use an automation solution to continuously monitor adherence and enforce it 24/7. It’s a great way to automatically find and instantly fix any potentially damaging configuration drift. You can use the generated documentation as an audit trail and to help prove compliance.

Turning DORA mandates into policy as code eliminates much of the heavy lifting and sets you up for long term success, while also reducing the risk of devastating breaches, damaging outages, and significant penalties because of non-compliance.

Leveraging automation for DORA compliance

My next recommendation is automation – it’s the single best way to achieve and enforce compliance with DORA’s technical mandates.

By automating routine tasks like configuration drift remediation, software updates, and compliance reporting, organisations can significantly reduce the risks associated with human error, dramatically improving overall speed and efficiency.

Agent-based automation is incredibly effective at boosting resilience, since agents can continue to self-enforce policy compliance even if there is an outage and the server is disconnected. Being proactive is key: you don’t want to chase endless security fires, face a failed audit, suffer a breach, or mishandle sensitive data.

With the 17 January enforcement deadline quickly approaching, it’s critical to take proactive steps now to ensure compliance. By embracing automation and policy as code, organisations can effectively manage DORA’s technical mandates, mitigate cyber risks, and establish more a resilient infrastructure.

Don’t allow ongoing DORA compliance to become a burden – invest in an infrastructure automation platform that empowers you to meet and maintain these strict standards now and in the future.

Your organisation depends on it.

Read this free DORA e-book for additional guidance.

About the author

Robin Tatam (CISM CPFA CTSP CTMA PCI-P) is a senior technical marketer and evangelist at Puppet by Perforce, where he promotes the benefits of managing compliance using Puppet.

Prior to his role with Puppet, Robin worked as a security evangelist, and was a globally recognised SME and five-time IBM Champion.

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