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Chapter IV – Digital operational resilience testing (Art. 24-27)

Art. 24 DORA - General requirements for the performance of digital operational resilience testing arrow_right_alt

  1. For the purpose of assessing preparedness for handling ICT-related incidents, of identifying weaknesses, deficiencies and gaps in digital operational resilience, and of promptly implementing corrective measures, financial entities, other than microenterprises, shall, taking into account the criteria set out in Article 4(2), establish, maintain and review a sound and comprehensive digital operational resilience testing programme as an integral part of the ICT risk-management framework referred to in Article 6.
  2. The digital operational resilience testing programme shall include a range of assessments, tests, methodologies, practices and tools to be applied in accordance with Articles 25 and 26.
  3. When conducting the digital operational resilience testing programme referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article, financial entities, other than microenterprises, shall follow a risk-based approach taking into account the criteria set out in Article 4(2) duly considering the evolving landscape of ICT risk, any specific risks to which the financial entity concerned is or might be exposed, the criticality of information assets and of services provided, as well as any other factor the financial entity deems appropriate.
  4. Financial entities, other than microenterprises, shall ensure that tests are undertaken by independent parties, whether internal or external. Where tests are undertaken by an internal tester, financial entities shall dedicate sufficient resources and ensure that conflicts of interest are avoided throughout the design and execution phases of the test.
  5. Financial entities, other than microenterprises, shall establish procedures and policies to prioritise, classify and remedy all issues revealed throughout the performance of the tests and shall establish internal validation methodologies to ascertain that all identified weaknesses, deficiencies or gaps are fully addressed.
  6. Financial entities, other than microenterprises, shall ensure, at least yearly, that appropriate tests are conducted on all ICT systems and applications supporting critical or important functions.
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  • 25
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  • 43
  • 44
  • 56

Recital 25

Digital operational resilience testing requirements have been developed in certain financial subsectors setting out frameworks that are not always fully aligned. This leads to a potential duplication of costs for cross-border financial entities and makes the mutual recognition of the results of digital operational resilience testing complex which, in turn, can fragment the internal market.

Recital 26

In addition, where no ICT testing is required, vulnerabilities remain undetected and result in exposing a financial entity to ICT risk and ultimately create a higher risk to the stability and integrity of the financial sector. Without Union intervention, digital operational resilience testing would continue to be inconsistent and would lack a system of mutual recognition of ICT testing results across different jurisdictions. In addition, as it is unlikely that other financial subsectors would adopt testing schemes on a meaningful scale, they would miss out on the potential benefits of a testing framework, in terms of revealing ICT vulnerabilities and risks, and testing defence capabilities and business continuity, which contributes to increasing the trust of customers, suppliers and business partners. To remedy those overlaps, divergences and gaps, it is necessary to lay down rules for a coordinated testing regime and thereby facilitate the mutual recognition of advanced testing for financial entities meeting the criteria set out in this Regulation.

Recital 43

Similarly, financial entities which qualify as microenterprises or are subject to the simplified ICT risk management framework under this Regulation should not be required to establish a role to monitor their arrangements concluded with ICT third-party service providers on the use of ICT services; or to designate a member of senior management to be responsible for overseeing the related risk exposure and relevant documentation; to assign the responsibility for managing and overseeing ICT risk to a control function and ensure an appropriate level of independence of such control function in order to avoid conflicts of interest; to document and review at least once a year the ICT risk management framework; to subject to internal audit on a regular basis the ICT risk management framework; to perform in-depth assessments after major changes in their network and information system infrastructures and processes; to regularly conduct risk analyses on legacy ICT systems; to subject the implementation of the ICT Response and Recovery plans to independent internal audit reviews; to have a crisis management function, to expand the testing of business continuity and response and recovery plans to capture switchover scenarios between primary ICT infrastructure and redundant facilities; to report to competent authorities, upon their request, an estimation of aggregated annual costs and losses caused by major ICT-related incidents, to maintain redundant ICT capacities; to communicate to national competent authorities implemented changes following post ICT-related incident reviews; to monitor on a continuous basis relevant technological developments, to establish a comprehensive digital operational resilience testing programme as an integral part of the ICT risk management framework provided for in this Regulation, or to adopt and regularly review a strategy on ICT third-party risk. In addition, microenterprises should only be required to assess the need to maintain such redundant ICT capacities based on their risk profile. Microenterprises should benefit from a more flexible regime as regards digital operational resilience testing programmes. When considering the type and frequency of testing to be performed, they should properly balance the objective of maintaining a high digital operational resilience, the available resources and their overall risk profile. Microenterprises and financial entities subject to the simplified ICT risk management framework under this Regulation should be exempted from the requirement to perform advanced testing of ICT tools, systems and processes based on threat-led penetration testing (TLPT), as only financial entities meeting the criteria set out in this Regulation should be required to carry out such testing. In light of their limited capabilities, microenterprises should be able to agree with the ICT third-party service provider to delegate the financial entity’s rights of access, inspection and audit to an independent third-party, to be appointed by the ICT third-party service provider, provided that the financial entity is able to request, at any time, all relevant information and assurance on the ICT third-party service provider’s performance from the respective independent third-party.

Recital 44

As only those financial entities identified for the purposes of the advanced digital resilience testing should be required to conduct threat-led penetration tests, the administrative processes and financial costs entailed in the performance of such tests should be borne by a small percentage of financial entities.

Recital 56

In order to achieve a high level of digital operational resilience, and in line with both the relevant international standards (e.g. the G7 Fundamental Elements for Threat-Led Penetration Testing) and with the frameworks applied in the Union, such as the TIBER-EU, financial entities should regularly test their ICT systems and staff having ICT-related responsibilities with regard to the effectiveness of their preventive, detection, response and recovery capabilities, to uncover and address potential ICT vulnerabilities. To reflect differences that exist across, and within, the various financial subsectors as regards financial entities’ level of cybersecurity preparedness, testing should include a wide variety of tools and actions, ranging from the assessment of basic requirements (e.g. vulnerability assessments and scans, open source analyses, network security assessments, gap analyses, physical security reviews, questionnaires and scanning software solutions, source code reviews where feasible, scenario-based tests, compatibility testing, performance testing or end-to-end testing) to more advanced testing by means of TLPT. Such advanced testing should be required only of financial entities that are mature enough from an ICT perspective to reasonably carry it out. The digital operational resilience testing required by this Regulation should thus be more demanding for those financial entities meeting the criteria set out in this Regulation (for example, large, systemic and ICT-mature credit institutions, stock exchanges, central securities depositories and central counterparties) than for other financial entities. At the same time, the digital operational resilience testing by means of TLPT should be more relevant for financial entities operating in core financial services subsectors and playing a systemic role (for example, payments, banking, and clearing and settlement), and less relevant for other subsectors (for example, asset managers and credit rating agencies).

Art. 25 DORA - Testing of ICT tools and systems arrow_right_alt

Art. 26 DORA - Advanced testing of ICT tools, systems and processes based on TLPT arrow_right_alt

Art. 27 DORA - Requirements for testers for the carrying out of TLPT arrow_right_alt