NIS2: Why Europe’s New Cyber Directive is a Blueprint for True Cyber Resilience

A new cybersecurity reality has taken shape across Europe: the European Union’s updated Network and Information Security Directive (also known as NIS2) went into effect in January 2025. This sweeping regulation expands the cybersecurity obligations of thousands of organizations in critical sectors from energy and transport to healthcare, finance, cloud and data centers.

Much like the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) in the financial world, NIS2 isn’t just another compliance checkbox. It represents a modern, resilience-driven approach to cybersecurity governance—one that boards, auditors, and customers increasingly expect, and forward-looking CISOs are eager to embrace.

The good news? By embracing NIS2 and treating it as more than just another regulatory hurdle, organizations can turn it into a framework for validated, board-ready cyber resilience—a goal SafeBreach was purpose-built to support.

Why NIS2? The Challenge It Aims to Solve

Cyberattacks targeting Europe’s critical infrastructure have become more frequent and disruptive. From ransomware incidents that paralyze hospitals to attacks on energy grids and supply chains, the risks are real and escalating.

The original NIS Directive (2016) was a pioneering step, but it covered a narrower slice of operators. NIS2 significantly raises the bar by:

• Expanding scope: It now encompasses a vast range of “essential” and “important” entities across critical sectors, including cloud, data centers, digital marketplaces, and industrial manufacturing.
• Increasing accountability: Boards and executives are now directly accountable for cybersecurity oversight and face potential personal liability for failing to implement robust programs.
• Focusing on operational continuity: NIS2 explicitly ties cybersecurity measures to business resilience—requiring organizations to prove they can prevent, detect, respond to, and recover from incidents.

In short, NIS2 reflects the reality that cybersecurity is no longer purely an IT concern; it’s a core pillar of operational and strategic risk management.

What NIS2 Demands: Key Requirements

NIS2’s articles cover a comprehensive set of cybersecurity domains, many of which directly elevate the need for continuous validation and board-level transparency:

• Risk-based governance: Policies must be risk-driven, documented, and approved at the management level.
• Technical & operational measures: These span access controls, encryption, vulnerability management, incident handling, secure development, logging, and supply chain scrutiny.
• Rapid incident reporting: Within 24 hours of becoming aware, followed by detailed updates over the next 72 hours.
• Proof of continuous improvement: NIS2 requires organizations to demonstrate that they are actively reviewing, testing, and enhancing their controls over time.

And the stakes are high: non-compliance can lead to fines up to €10 million or 2% of global turnover, alongside reputational damage and operational restrictions.

More Than Just Europe: The Global Ripple Effect

Even organizations outside the EU—including the US and beyond—can’t ignore NIS2 due to:

• Supply chain accountability: EU-regulated companies must ensure their suppliers also meet rigorous cybersecurity standards.
• Convergence of global standards: Similar principles are surfacing in the UK’s upcoming Cyber Security and Resilience Bill, the SEC’s new disclosure rules, and various APAC initiatives.

In practice, aligning to NIS2 means aligning to the modern global benchmark for cybersecurity maturity.

Why This is a Golden Opportunity for CISOs

Many security leaders may initially view NIS2 as just another compliance burden. But reframed properly, it’s a chance to:

• Build trust with boards and regulators by proving operational resilience.
• Prioritize security investments based on data-driven insights into what truly matters.
• Differentiate in the market—customers increasingly favor partners who can prove they’re secure by design.

SafeBreach supports this shift by giving CISOs what they need most: the ability to show exactly how well defenses perform, where risk truly lives, and how to minimize the business impact if controls fail.

How SafeBreach Delivers Unique Value for NIS2 Readiness

Moving Beyond Basic Control Testing

Many security validation tools stop at testing if perimeter defenses catch known attacks. SafeBreach goes further by combining:

• Validate: Our breach and attack simulation (BAS) solution that continuously tests thousands of attack techniques (30,000+)—aligned to MITRE ATT&CK—so you can demonstrate that prevention and detection controls actually work across all the tactics NIS2 expects you to cover.
• Propagate: Our attack path validation solution that simulates what happens after a breach—mapping lateral movement paths, assessing blast radius, and identifying risk to “crown jewels.” This directly supports NIS2’s demands for minimizing the impact of incidents on business operations.

Together, they give you a complete picture—not only if your defense block attacks, but how far an attacker could move if they were to get through.

Empirical, Audit-Ready Evidence for Management and Boards

NIS2 Articles 21 and 23 emphasize that boards must have documented oversight of cyber risk, and that organizations must prove continuous improvement. SafeBreach’s executive dashboards and propagation risk posture reports transform technical security outcomes into board-level insights. They show:

• Exactly which threats your environment can withstand
• How deeply an adversary could penetrate
• Where to prioritize remediation to limit operational disruption

This means you’re not just “passing a test”—you’re continuously collecting data-driven evidence that stands up to regulator or auditor scrutiny.

Purpose-Built for Enterprise-Scale, Production-Safe Testing

Unlike many tools that require extensive tuning or risk overwhelming the SOC with alerts, SafeBreach is designed for large, regulated environments. The platform includes:

• Controls to safely limit propagation tests in production
• Vault-managed secrets to avoid credential lockouts
• Automated validation aligned with change management processes

So, you can prove to auditors you’re meeting NIS2’s governance mandates—without compromising stability.

Unified Platform for Full NIS2 Risk Management Lifecycle

Where others might require separate tools for attack simulation, vulnerability discovery, and incident preparedness, SafeBreach integrates all of this in a single platform aligned with CTEM best practices. This means:

• Fewer vendors to manage
• Consistent, end-to-end reporting for regulators and boards
• Clear traceability from prevention to detection, response, and recovery—exactly what NIS2’s articles require

Conclusion: Beyond Compliance. Built for Resilience.

NIS2 is more than an EU regulation; it’s a signal of where global cybersecurity expectations are headed. By treating it as an opportunity to embed continuous, validated resilience into your security program, you position your organization to thrive — no matter how the threat landscape or regulatory environment evolves.

With SafeBreach, you can validate your readiness, quantify your exposure, and prove your resilience — continuously.

Ready to see how SafeBreach can power your NIS2-aligned security program? Schedule a personalized demo today.