Cyber regulations: 3 minutes to understand everything
Cybersecurity and Regulations: How Hardening Your Systems Makes You Compliant and Resilient? As the digital world evolves, so do the threats. To cope, states and the European Union have multiplied cybersecurity regulations. RGPD, NIS2, DORA, LPM... so many acronyms that can be frightening - but they reflect the same need: to protect data, essential services and critical infrastructures.
What if we told you that hardening is the key to all these regulations?
The main cyber regulations: what you need to understand
1. RGPD (General Data Protection Regulation) - Since 2018
- Objective: to protect the personal data of European citizens
- Obligations: data security, right of access/deletion, breach notification
- Penalties: up to 4% of annual sales
- Cybersecurity requirements: encryption, access management, traceability
The RGPD doesn't dictate how to secure, but does require you to be able to prove that you've done it seriously.
2. NIS2 (Network and Information Security) - Applicability in 2024
- Objective: strengthen the cybersecurity of critical sectors (energy, healthcare, transport, etc.) and their service providers.
- Applicability: from October 2024
- Impact: many SMEs are now affected
- Bonds :
- Risk management plan
- Reporting incidents
- Formalized cyber governance
- Technical system hardening
3. DORA (Digital Operational Resilience Act) - Applicability in 2025
- Target sector: finance (banks, insurance companies, fintechs, etc.)
- Objective: ensure service continuity even in the event of a cyberattack
- Effective date: January 2025
- Requirements :
- Crisis scenarios and resilience tests
- Logging and traceability
- Control of external service providers
- Documented safety audits
4. LPM (Military Planning Law - France)
- Objective: protect critical national infrastructures (OIV / OSE)
- Bonds :
- Regular cybersecurity audits
- Setting up hardened information systems
- Alert and response plans
- Impact: even companies not directly targeted can be affected if they are involved in the value chain
Why hardening is your best ally
Hardening is a set of best practices designed to reduce the attack surface of your IT systems.
This involves :
- Disable unnecessary services
- Close unnecessary ports
- Fine-tune access rights
- Apply group policies (GPO)
- Update systems
- Encrypting disks and data streams
- Enable audit logs
Hardening not only protects you from threats, but also enables you to prove your compliance in the event of a control or audit.
How does hardening facilitate compliance?
| Regulations | What it requires | What hardening does for you |
|---|---|---|
| RGPD | Personal data protection | Reduced risk of unauthorized access, encryption |
| NIS2 | Risk management, technical safety, documentation | Secure configuration, traceability, GPO documentation |
| DORA | Operational resilience, testing, auditability | Stable systems, hardened, logs enabled |
| LPM | Enhanced security for critical infrastructures | Access control, configuration hardening |
In concrete terms, hardening your systems allows you to :
- Avoid penalties (because you can prove your vigilance)
- Resisting the most common cyberattacks
- Reassure your customers, partners and service providers
- Be ready for growing market and tender requirements
In a nutshell
- Cyber regulations apply to all businesses, including SMEs
- Compliance cannot be decreed, it must be proven
- Hardening is a concrete, measurable and effective action
- It makes you more resilient, more credible and more compliant.
Cybersecurity doesn't start with a firewall... it starts with common sense, and a good hardening.
Not sure where to start?
- See CIS Benchmarks for Windows/Linux
- Follow the guides provided by ANSSI (France) orENISA (EU)
- Perform a configuration audit of your workstations, servers and SaaS tools
- Work with your CIO or cybersecurity partner to apply best practices
