5 Steps for Solving DORA’s Observability and Security Challenges

Financial institutions are built on trust, but trust is fragile. A single system failure or cybersecurity breach can trigger financial losses, damage brand reputation, and lead to costly regulatory fines—forcing teams to scramble to put out fires. The Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) ensures organizations are always ready to tackle challenges and strengthen resilience with observability and security frameworks.

Collaborative Insights, Network Observability, and Resilient Security

Every business strives for a low service failure rate and rapid recovery. However, the pace of competition means faster software delivery with quick and frequent deployments. With the growing reliance on digital services and infrastructure, DORA operational compliance strategies are ultimately about building and protecting operations that are increasingly customer-centric.

“Compliance with DORA is not merely a regulatory obligation but a crucial step in enhancing overall customer experience and changing customer expectations.”
— CX Network

Without collaborative insights from observability and cybersecurity, DORA’s compliance framework risks falling apart—alongside the services customers trust. Observability ensures networks and services are measurable and monitored to track performance and availability, detect anomalies, and resolve issues proactively. Cybersecurity defends against threats such as cyberattacks, data breaches, and malicious activities. Together, they create a robust and resilient foundation for financial services operations.

5 Steps That Will Help Financial Institutions Solve DORA Challenges

Remaining DORA compliant requires a strategic approach that incorporates observability and cybersecurity into daily operations. By following these five steps, organizations can address ongoing requirements and strengthen operational resilience.

Step 1: Strengthen ICT Risk Management

Effective risk management for information and communications technology (ICT) systems requires constant visibility into infrastructure and proactive security measures to address risks. Observability allows businesses to understand how performance risks spread across interconnected systems, applications, networks, and interdependent domains, while cybersecurity proactively addresses vulnerabilities to ensure system reliability and security.

To strengthen resilience, businesses should maintain a regularly updated inventory of critical services, their supporting ICT systems, and all interdependencies—including upstream and downstream connections and third-party providers. This should include redundant infrastructure such as backup data centers and failover links. Additionally, businesses should monitor real-time metrics to identify vulnerabilities or bottlenecks across networks, applications, cloud, on-premises, and remote sites. Leveraging behavioral insights can further enhance resilience by detecting threats, assessing dependency risks, and analyzing trends where failures could significantly impact customers and data.

Step 2: Refine Incident Reporting

DORA compliance reporting is an ongoing process to ensure incidents are accurately and securely captured and shared within required timelines. Observability and cybersecurity work together to maintain these capabilities effectively.

Use real-time views and automated alerts that detect and classify incidents as they occur. Implement robust risk monitoring to protect data integrity and maintain system reliability throughout incident management. These measures allow for faster identification of root causes, accurate impact assessment, and thorough documentation for compliance reporting. Additionally, establish workflows for escalation and communication to streamline processes and strengthen operational resilience.

Ongoing improvements to incident reporting not only uphold compliance goals but also build trust with regulators and customers via transparency and readiness.

Step 3: Regularly Conduct Resilience Testing

Regular resilience testing is essential for compliance. Observability provides the insights needed to validate system performance, while cybersecurity ensures protective measures withstand real-world threats.

During these tests—such as synthetic testing—observability tracks and trends system behavior, identifies weaknesses, and validates recovery strategies. At the same time, cybersecurity solutions should be assessed to confirm they can prevent and respond to potential threats. For instance, during a stress test, monitor how the network handles traffic surges while confirming that cybersecurity protocols are actively maintaining system integrity and stability.

Step 4: Monitor and Secure Digital Supply Chains

DORA regulations mandate oversight of the digital supply chain. Businesses should keep their mapping of third-party systems up to date and continuously monitor their performance, availability, and security prior to and after updates. Observability provides real-time insights into potential issues, such as slowdowns or vulnerabilities, while cybersecurity mitigates risks introduced by vendors. For example, observability can detect slowdowns in a cloud-native application, while cybersecurity focuses on securing systems against vulnerabilities such as exposed application programming interfaces (APIs) or misconfigurations.

Step 5: Facilitate Intelligence Sharing Across Communities and Teams

IT organizations cannot achieve resilience in silos. DORA emphasizes collaboration across IT, security, and operational teams—internally and sectorwide—to address risks and maintain compliance. Network and service monitoring acts as the bridge that connects these teams by providing a shared source of truth.

Financial institutions ideally should implement collaborative solutions that unify data from networks, applications, and security systems into universally accessible analytics. This enables network operations (NetOps), security operations (SecOps), other disciplines, regulators, and leadership to work together cohesively, share insights, and make informed decisions based on accurate, vetted data.

The NETSCOUT Advantage

With NETSCOUT’s nGenius solutions, financial institutions gain comprehensive observability into network and system performance across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments. This ensures critical services are aligned with DORA’s ongoing performance requirements. For security, NETSCOUT Omnis Cyber Intelligence provides advanced threat detection and real-time insights to help mitigate risks and respond quickly to incidents. By using them together, financial institutions can achieve compliance while protecting customers from avoidable crises and reconfirming their trust.

Ready to take the next step? Explore how NETSCOUT can support your ongoing DORA compliance efforts today. Also, read our white paper for more information about DORA compliance strategies.

DORA is reshaping compliance—but what does that mean for channel partners? Read our feature article “Why DORA Is So Important for Channel Partners” in the publication “Intelligent Tech Channels,” where NETSCOUT Director of Security Product Marketing Gary Sockrider explores DORA’s key principles and their impact on channel partners.