Guide to Mastering DORA Compliance Strategies

As cyber threats grow, financial institutions face increasing risks that can disrupt operations and threaten critical assets. In April 2022, Beanstalk Farms, a decentralized finance platform, suffered a $182 million loss from a flash loan attack that exploited governance vulnerabilities, underscoring the urgent need for robust digital operational resilience.

The Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) is designed to help organizations in the financial sector strengthen their digital resilience. By following its guidelines, your institution can withstand unexpected disruptions, protect critical operations, and improve risk management and cybersecurity while staying ahead of regulatory requirements.

In this guide, we will explore practical DORA compliance strategies, highlight common challenges, and provide actionable steps to safeguard your operations.

What is DORA Compliance?

The Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) is a regulation that aims to ensure financial institutions can maintain operations despite digital disruptions. It focuses on improving operational resilience through strong risk management and continuous monitoring of digital infrastructure.

DORA sets out clear guidelines for risk assessment, incident reporting, and resilience testing, ensuring that businesses are prepared for cyber-attacks and system failures. Compliance with DORA helps organizations protect their critical operations and remain operational during unforeseen digital disruptions. 

Next, let’s look into the key requirements to ensure your business meets these standards.

Key Requirements of DORA Compliance

DORA outlines several essential requirements to ensure that organizations can maintain operational resilience in the face of digital risks. It emphasizes the need for robust risk management, incident reporting, and continuous resilience testing.

Here are the key requirements to achieve DORA compliance:

• ICT Risk Management Framework: Implement a structured framework to identify, assess, and mitigate ICT risks, ensuring a proactive approach to potential threats such as system vulnerabilities and cyber-attacks.
• Incident Management and Reporting: Establish clear procedures for detecting, managing, and reporting incidents within 4 hours of discovery, ensuring compliance with DORA’s timely notification requirement to regulators and stakeholders.
• Digital Resilience Testing: Conduct annual resilience tests that simulate real-world threats like cyber-attacks and system failures to assess the effectiveness of your business continuity and recovery strategies.
• Third-Party ICT Risk Management: Assess and monitor third-party vendors regularly, ensuring they meet DORA’s resilience standards and include relevant compliance clauses in all contracts to avoid supply chain risks.
• Information Sharing and Collaboration: Maintain active information-sharing practices with regulatory bodies and industry peers to improve collective cybersecurity measures, including sharing details on emerging threats and vulnerabilities.

With these key requirements in place, the next step is to develop a complete compliance strategy that aligns with DORA’s guidelines and improves your organization’s resilience. Let’s explore how you can build a strong DORA compliance strategy.

Building a Strong DORA Compliance Strategy

Building a strong DORA compliance strategy is essential for ensuring your business can effectively manage risks and meet regulatory requirements. A comprehensive strategy will allow your organization to strengthen its digital resilience, improve security measures, and minimize disruptions.

Here are the key components that will help you develop a strategy aligned with DORA:

1. Conducting a Comprehensive Risk Assessment

A comprehensive risk assessment helps identify and evaluate critical risks across your organization’s ICT infrastructure, business operations, and third-party relationships. Focus on areas like cybersecurity, data privacy, and system failures to understand potential vulnerabilities. Regularly update this assessment to address growing risks effectively.

2. Utilizing Existing Compliance Frameworks

Integrating established frameworks such as NIST or ISO 27001 can streamline DORA compliance. These frameworks provide industry-tested standards for managing cybersecurity, risk mitigation, and incident response. By utilizing them, you align with global best practices and also meet DORA’s digital resilience requirements.

3. Establishing a Governance Framework and Defining Roles

For DORA compliance to be effective, a clear governance framework is necessary. Define specific roles and responsibilities for key departments, ensuring that compliance is managed across the organization. Assign accountability to senior management, risk officers, and IT teams, ensuring alignment with DORA’s risk management requirements.

4. Continuous Improvement and Adaptation

DORA compliance requires ongoing evaluation and adjustment. Conduct regular resilience testing, update your risk assessments, and integrate feedback from audits and incident reports to continuously improve your compliance strategy. This ensures your organization remains adaptable to arising threats and regulatory changes.

By implementing these steps, you can develop a DORA compliance strategy that strengthens your organization’s resilience, ensures regulatory adherence, and minimizes risks associated with digital disruptions.

Let’s explore how you can improve cybersecurity and strengthen your operational continuity.

Strengthening Security and Resilience

Strengthening security and resilience is essential to ensure your organization can meet DORA compliance and protect against potential disruptions. This involves implementing strong cybersecurity measures, ensuring effective backup and recovery, and managing third-party risks.

Below are key strategies to improve your organization’s security and resilience:

• Implement Multi-Layered Cybersecurity Measures: Develop a complete cybersecurity framework with encryption, firewalls, and multi-factor authentication to protect your systems and data. Regularly conduct penetration tests and vulnerability assessments to detect and address potential risks.
• Establish a Robust Backup and Recovery Plan: Ensure that your critical data is backed up regularly and stored securely in multiple locations. Create clear procedures for disaster recovery to restore systems quickly and minimize downtime in case of cyber-attacks or system failures.
• Conduct Regular Threat Detection and Monitoring: Set up real-time threat detection systems using AI-powered tools to monitor your infrastructure for arising risks. This proactive approach helps identify and mitigate threats before they disrupt operations.
• Strengthen Third-Party ICT Risk Management: Review and update contracts with third-party vendors to ensure they comply with DORA’s security and incident response protocols. Regularly assess their security measures and perform audits to confirm they meet your organization’s resilience standards.
• Continuous Security Awareness and Employee Training: Train employees on cybersecurity best practices, such as recognizing phishing attempts and using strong passwords. Regular training sessions will help ensure staff members are aware of potential threats and can contribute to maintaining a secure environment.

With a solid security and resilience foundation in place, the next crucial step is to conduct regular testing and audits to ensure ongoing DORA compliance and identify areas for improvement. Let’s explore how you can implement effective testing and auditing processes.

Conducting Regular DORA Compliance Testing and Audits

Regular compliance testing and audits are essential to ensure that your organization consistently meets DORA’s requirements. These processes help identify gaps in your compliance framework, improve resilience, and ensure that you’re always prepared for regulatory inspections.

Here are the essential compliance tests and audits:

1. Digital Resilience Testing

Digital resilience testing simulates cyber-attacks, system failures, and other disruptions to evaluate your organization’s ability to recover and maintain operations. 

These tests should be conducted annually or more often if there are significant changes in your systems or threat landscape to maintain operations. 

2. Incident Response Drills

Incident response drills test how quickly and effectively your team can react to a cybersecurity breach or operational failure. These drills should occur at least quarterly to ensure that all team members are familiar with their roles and procedures during a real incident.

3. Risk Assessments and Vulnerability Scanning

To identify potential vulnerabilities in your ICT systems, conduct annual risk assessments. Vulnerability scanning should be done regularly, at least every 6 months, to detect and fix weaknesses before they are exploited.

4. Third-Party Vendor Audits

Third-party vendors refer to external service providers that your organization relies on, such as cloud providers, IT support, or software solutions. These audits should be done annually or whenever significant changes occur in your third-party relationships or contracts.

5. Compliance Audits

Conduct compliance audits to assess whether your organization is meeting all DORA requirements, such as incident reporting, risk management practices, and resilience testing. These audits should be carried out annually or after any major regulatory changes.

With your testing and auditing processes in place, the next crucial step is to focus on training, awareness, and collaboration. 

Also read: Compliance Audit Basics: A Quick Guide

Training, Awareness, and Collaboration

Training, awareness, and collaboration are essential to ensure that your organization is consistently adhering to DORA’s compliance requirements. By providing role-specific training, encouraging cross-departmental cooperation, and engaging with external stakeholders, you can build a culture of compliance that improves resilience across the company. 

Below are key areas to focus on:

1. Role-Specific Training Programs: Provide training personalized to each department’s specific DORA compliance responsibilities, ensuring everyone understands their role in risk management, incident response, and reporting.
2. Cybersecurity Awareness Programs: Run regular cybersecurity awareness sessions to educate employees about phishing attacks, latest threats, and best practices to maintain secure systems and reduce human error.
3. Cross-Departmental Collaboration: Encourage collaboration between departments like IT, legal, and operations to align efforts and ensure that all aspects of DORA compliance are effectively managed across the organization.
4. Engaging with Regulatory Bodies: Stay engaged with regulatory bodies by participating in industry forums and workshops to keep up with evolving DORA requirements and ensure your compliance efforts are aligned with industry standards.
5. Third-Party Training and Awareness: Provide training for third-party vendors to ensure they understand their responsibilities in maintaining DORA compliance, especially regarding security protocols and incident management.

These steps will help you build a compliance-driven culture, ensuring DORA requirements are consistently met across your organization.

Next, let’s look at how to overcome common DORA compliance challenges. 

Common DORA Compliance Challenges

Achieving DORA compliance can be challenging due to various factors, from resource constraints to the complexity of integrating new regulations into existing processes. Additionally, staying updated with growing regulations and ensuring continuous monitoring can be overwhelming.

Below are some common challenges organizations face and strategies to overcome them:

• Complexity of Compliance Requirements: DORA’s extensive requirements can be overwhelming, especially for organizations with limited resources. Break them into manageable steps, prioritize high-risk areas, and use GRC platforms like VComply to streamline and track progress.
• Integration with Existing Systems: Integrating DORA compliance into legacy systems can be costly and time-consuming. Invest in automated, cloud-based solutions that seamlessly integrate with your existing infrastructure to simplify compliance.
• Managing Third-Party Risks: Third-party vendors can introduce risks if not properly managed. Conduct regular audits and ensure DORA compliance clauses are included in contracts to hold vendors to the same security standards.
• Continuous Monitoring and Updates: DORA requires continuous monitoring and regular updates. Implement automated monitoring tools and conduct frequent tests to stay compliant with growing threats and regulations.
• Resource Constraints: Smaller organizations may lack resources to meet DORA’s stringent requirements. Utilize outsourced services or technology solutions to reduce internal workload while maintaining compliance.

Also read: Top 5 Compliance Challenges for Teams in 2025

Addressing these challenges effectively requires clear processes, regular monitoring, and the right tools. Solutions like VComply can help streamline compliance tasks, manage third-party risks, and ensure your organization consistently meets DORA requirements.

Use VComply to Simplify DORA Compliance

VComply’s ComplianceOps enables businesses to streamline compliance workflows, reduce manual errors, and stay aligned with DORA’s stringent standards. This platform integrates key compliance functions, allowing organizations to manage risk and adhere to regulatory requirements with ease and efficiency.

Here’s what it offers:

• Framework Library: Preload content based on your specific regulatory frameworks, certifications, or internal controls for streamlined compliance management.
• Evidence Repository: Centralized storage for documents and evidence with role-based access, ensuring you’re always audit-ready.
• Audits & Assessments: Customize and conduct regulatory audits and site assessments with multi-device support for multiple locations.
• Dashboards & Reports: Create customized, department-specific, or third-party dashboards and reports with just a few clicks.
• Simple Distribution: Organize teams and departments to distribute the right information within your workflows efficiently.
• Customized Automation & Alerts: Set up frequency, stakeholders, notifications, and lifecycle of compliance programs, with tailored alerts through multiple integrations.

Book a demo today to see how VComply can support your DORA compliance efforts.

Wrapping Up

Achieving DORA compliance requires a comprehensive strategy that includes risk assessments, strong security measures, continuous monitoring, and regular testing. By utilizing the right tools and addressing common issues, businesses can ensure they meet regulatory requirements.

VComply offers an all-in-one GRC platform with modules like ComplianceOps and RiskOps to streamline compliance processes and simplify DORA management. Start a free trial today to see how VComply can help improve your organization’s compliance operations and strengthen resilience.

FAQs

1. What are the primary benefits of DORA compliance for my organization?

DORA compliance ensures that your organization can withstand cyber threats and operational disruptions, improving resilience. It also improves regulatory adherence, increases stakeholder trust, and ensures business continuity in the face of unexpected events.

2. How can a GRC platform help manage third-party risks in line with DORA?

A GRC platform allows you to assess and monitor third-party vendors, ensuring they meet DORA compliance standards. It helps streamline risk assessments, track vendor performance, and integrate necessary compliance clauses into contracts for better security.

3. What types of digital resilience tests are required for DORA compliance?

DORA requires businesses to conduct annual digital resilience tests that simulate cyber-attacks, system failures, and other disruptions. These tests help evaluate your organization’s ability to recover and continue operations effectively.

4. How often should compliance audits be conducted under DORA?

Annual compliance audits are necessary to assess adherence to DORA’s requirements. However, audits should also be done after significant changes, such as new third-party vendors or updates to your risk management systems.

5. What role does employee training play in DORA compliance?

Employee training ensures that all staff members understand their responsibilities in maintaining DORA compliance, especially in areas like incident response and risk management. Regular training sessions improve awareness and help mitigate human error, which is critical for compliance.