NIS Directive & NIS Regulations

The NIS Directive – EU Directive 2016/1148 – is the Directive on the Security of Networks and Information Systems. This is a piece of EU-wide legislation designed to enhance the general level of cyber security in place across the European Union’s critical infrastructure. Alongside cyber security measures, the NIS Directive also covers physical and environmental factors. In the UK, the Directive was transposed into domestic law as the NIS Regulations.

There are four key NIS Directive objectives; managing security risk, protecting against cyber-attack, detecting cyber events, and minimising the impact of cyber incidents. Under these objectives sit fourteen NIS Directive subcategories, called principles.

The NIS Directive and Regulations apply to two main groups of organisations – Operators of Essential Services (OES) and Relevant Digital Service Providers (RDSP). OESs are organisations that provide an essential service to society that could be disrupted by a cyber incident, including energy, transport, water and healthcare. RDSPs are digital service providers over a certain size that provide online marketplace, search engine and cloud computing services.

The main security requirement of NIS is to “identify and take appropriate and proportionate measures to manage the risks posed to the security of network and information systems”. The measures in question should be appropriate to the overall risk posed, covering incident handling, business continuity management, monitoring, auditing and testing, as well as compliance with international standards.

The Cyber Assessment Framework, or CAF, is a set of guidance released by the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) to help OESs and RDSPs meet the requirements of the NIS Directive and NIS Regulations. Guidance includes a detailed description of each requirement, alongside suggested measures for organisations to take to achieve compliance.

Under the NIS Regulations, essential services in the UK include organisations that depend on network and information systems to provide services that are relied upon by society and could have significant detrimental impacts if they were interrupted. This includes organisations in the energy (oil, gas, electricity), transportation (aviation, rail, shipping, cargo), water and healthcare sectors.

Competent Authorities (CA) are the bodies appointed by member states to oversee the implementation of the NIS Directive. In the UK, the CAs responsible for enforcing the NIS Regulations are split by industry. These include the Secretaries of State for Energy, Transport, Health and the Environment, and various devolved authorities such as the Department of Finance for Northern Ireland and the Welsh and Scottish Ministers.

An NIS security audit is the process where Operators of Essential Services (OES) are assessed by their designated CA to ensure they are compliant with the NIS Directive, or are at least putting measures in place to work towards it. Relevant Digital Service Providers (RDSPs) will not be audited but may be investigated if an cyber incident occurs that could indicate non-compliance.

Organisations that fall foul of the NIS Directive in the UK could be fined up to a maximum of £17 million. The largest fines are reserved for incidents that result in an immediate threat to life or significant adverse impact on the UK economy.

Many of the requirements of the NIS Directive and Regulations are aligned to those found in the General Data Protection regulation (GDPR). The main difference between NIS and GDPR is that while the NIS Directive and Regulations only apply to OESs and RDSPs, the GDPR applies to organisations that process personal data. Many organisations will already have implemented measures to support GDPR compliance, and those efforts can help to comply with both standards simultaneously.