ISMS in NIS2-relevant organizations: Benefits of tool-supported implementation

The implementation of NIS2 into national legislation will significantly expand the group of organizations that, due to their importance to society, are required to systematically address the security of the data they process. The use of an ISMS tool can help these organizations effectively and sustainably manage the requirements of NIS2.

Management’s assumption of overall responsibility and the provision of adequate resources are essential for establishing and maintaining comprehensive and sustainable data security. This includes selecting appropriately qualified personnel, as well as deciding which tools should be used to ensure the most structured, traceable, and efficient ISMS implementation possible.

Asset Register

A precise understanding of the organizational structure, the process landscape, and the IT infrastructure is a fundamental prerequisite for successfully safeguarding processed data against loss of confidentiality, integrity, authenticity, and availability. An organizational chart, a process map, and a network topology diagram—all in their current versions—are essential for the information security process, as is the mapping of dependencies between the organizational units, processes, applications, server systems, connections, and storage locations for the processed data documented therein. 

Particularly in more complex organizations, the use of an ISMS tool can offer significant added value because the included forms and their fields determine the level of detail required for the information to be documented and typically support the linking of assets to map dependencies. They often also feature interfaces that significantly facilitate the automation of ongoing documentation maintenance, for example, if the organization has an established CMDB.

Business Impact Analysis and Risk Analysis

Not every process in an organization is equally important for the provision of business-critical services or the delivery of products. Business Impact Analysis is used to methodically examine the time-criticality of processes in order to prioritize them for protection based on the expected damage in the event of a failure. It is also important to ensure that the restart parameters derived from the damage assessment are not undermined by the supporting assets of the process.

Here, too, the use of an ISMS tool can be helpful if the dependencies depicted by links in the information network represent the process’s so-called internal supply chain. The protection requirements regarding availability identified through the Business Impact Analysis and the derived recovery parameters, such as recovery time objective (RTO) and maximum tolerable downtime (MTPD), can subsequently be applied as target values to the assets, making it easier to identify any shortfalls.

The risk analysis following the business impact analysis systematically addresses the possible causes of a process failure and the mitigation method (reduction, avoidance, transfer, acceptance), depending on the nature of the specific risk.

In this step of the information security process, the benefits of tool-supported implementation become particularly clear when the risk analysis is based on the same data set as the asset register and the business impact analysis. The documented assets are linked to relevant threats to form risk scenarios. A matrix with predefined values simplifies the assessment of risk in terms of its probability of occurrence and impact, and the risk acceptance threshold indicates the organization’s so-called risk appetite. An ISMS tool with integrated calculation logic can also help to efficiently and transparently assess the benefits of risk-reducing measures and the remaining residual risk after their implementation (qualitatively/quantitatively).

Reporting

The establishment of an information security management system involves both recurring and event-driven (e.g., following an incident) reviews. Consequently, the organization should be able to evaluate the parameters of its ISMS as effectively and efficiently as possible in order to make rapid improvements when necessary. This is where the strength of ISMS tools is particularly evident, because the relevant data is typically stored in a structured and audit-proof manner in a database and can be compiled into a report—which may be nested—and presented in a format tailored to the target audience (lists, pie charts, and spider diagrams) using database queries.

Not sure if NIS2 applies to you? The Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) offers a free check for this: https://betroffenheitspruefung-nis-2.bsi.de/.

Conclusion

The transposition of the NIS2 Directive into national law requires over 25,000 new organizations in Germany to ensure adequate protection of the data they process. The associated efforts involved in planning, implementing, reviewing, and improving (PDCA) the information security management system can be significantly reduced through the use of a suitable ISMS tool. The range of available solutions extends from spreadsheet template kits to AI-powered systems. It is therefore advisable to validate the suitability of the respective solution in advance through a live demo or a trial setup, as migration during ongoing operations typically incurs significant additional time and financial costs.

The Akarion GRC Cloud is an ISMS tool tailored to the needs of SMEs, which can be expanded to include business continuity, data privacy, auditing, and whistleblowing, thereby evolving into an integrated management system.

Get to know the tool in a no-obligation live demo:

Book a demo NOW