European regulation does not introduce the risk, but it requires organisations to prove they can manage it.

In the previous articles of this series, we analysed the global landscape through the Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2026 and the Spanish 2025 INCIBE report. Both confirmed the same trend: cyber risk is already systemic and operational.

With NIS2 and DORA, that diagnosis becomes a concrete requirement: organisations must demonstrate real capability to manage, respond to and recover from incidents.

From policy to operational maturity

Many organisations already have policies, plans and control frameworks. The challenge is no longer documentation, but execution.

NIS2 requires:

  • Structured risk management.
  • Effective governance of critical third parties.
  • Timely and traceable incident reporting.

DORA goes further in the financial sector:

  • Regular operational resilience testing.
  • Formal ICT risk management.
  • Oversight of critical technology providers.
  • Demonstrable recovery capability.

The key shift is clear: declaring controls is not enough; organisations must prove they work under pressure.

Where friction usually appears

In real environments, weaknesses often emerge around:

  • Limited end-to-end visibility.
  • Architectural concentration on a single provider.
  • Fragmented incident management.
  • Business continuity plans that are rarely tested.
  • Operational dependency on third parties without continuous assessment.

At this stage, resilience stops being strategic rhetoric and becomes daily operational discipline.

Architectures designed to degrade, not collapse

Operational resilience does not mean avoiding failure. It means designing systems that can absorb disruption without compromising essential continuity.

This requires:

  • Segmentation and reduced exposure surface.
  • Proactive monitoring and early detection.
  • Tested recovery procedures.
  • Real governance over the technology supply chain.
  • Portable design and reduced unnecessary dependencies.

At TeraLevel, we often see that compliance may trigger the change, but sustainable resilience depends on architecture, observability and operational discipline.

Conclusion

NIS2 and DORA do not introduce artificial complexity. They formalise an existing reality: cyber resilience is a structural attribute of the organisation.

Those who align architecture, operations and governance under a coherent model will be better prepared for an environment where incidents are no longer isolated events, but systemic disruptions.