Navigating NIS2 Compliance: How Box Supports Cybersecurity Readiness

February 12th 2025 | Legal at Box

Understanding the NIS2 Directive

The European Union’s (EU) Network and Information Security Directive 2.0(the Directive), or NIS2, represents an advancement in the region’s approach to cybersecurity regulation. Adopted by the European Parliament and Council on November 28, 2022, NIS2 builds on the original NIS directive to address evolving threats and vulnerability. Rooted in the EU’s goal of achieving a high common level of cybersecurity across Member States, NIS2 expands the scope of organizations covered and imposes stricter requirements. These include robust risk management, incident reporting, and corporate accountability measures for entities operating in or servicing the EU market.

NIS2 emphasizes the shared responsibility of Member States to impose obligations on organizations that providing critical infrastructure and essential services, ensuring key systems are safeguarded. In the coming months, member states are expected to adopt implementing legislation, making now the time for organizations within scope of NIS2 to prepare. As of 17 October 2024, member states were required to transpose the Directive into national legislation, and organizations within scope need to comply with these new requirements. All organizations should carefully review their specific obligations under NIS2, as requirements will vary based on their operations and role in the ecosystem.

This blog explores how the use of Box services and features may support organizations’ compliance posture, with our intelligent content management and enterprise-grade solutions that prioritize data protection, security, and compliance.

Core Compliance Areas

Achieving compliance with the Directive requires a clear understanding of its scope and requirements. Before addressing specific compliance areas, organizations should determine whether they fall under the Directive as a covered entity, which includes important entities and essential entities according to the criteria specified in the directive.

Once classification is established, organizations can focus on addressing the Directive’s core compliance areas:

Risk Management: Conducting risk assessments, securing supply chains, enhancing access control and encryption are integral components of mitigating cyber risk.
Business Continuity: Maintaining effective business continuity and disaster recovery plans is crucial for sustaining operations during disruptions.
Incident Handling: Meeting stringent reporting requirements, including a 24-hour "early warning" notification for significant incidents.

How Box Supports NIS2 Compliance

At Box, we focus on secure access, data protection, and strong governance to help organizations boost their cybersecurity posture. Box holds various international privacy and security certifications, which further demonstrate our commitment to compliance; these can be found in the Box Trust Center. As such, use of Box services and features can be aligned and support compliance with both the requirements of the NIS2 Directive and key provisions of ENISA Implementing Guidance.

Risk Management

NIS2 requires organizations to evaluate, address, and mitigate potential threats to their network and information systems. The Directive emphasizes the need for ongoing risk analysis and appropriate measures to minimize vulnerabilities.

Here are some ways in which Box services and features can help:

Granular Permissions: Box services and features allow organizations to restrict access to sensitive data with role-based access controls, minimizing the risk of unauthorized access or insider threats.
Secure Authentication and Access Management: Box services and features support multi-factor authentication (MFA) and single sign-in (SSO) to add an extra layer of security by requiring multiple forms of verification before granting access.
Encryption: All content stored in Box is encrypted with an encryption cipher suite starting at 256-bit AES, with in-transit files receiving TLS 1.2+ encrypted protection. Box supports TLS 1.3, but is configured to work with TLS 1.2 when required for compatibility. For enhanced control, Box KeySafe allows independent control over encryption keys.

Business Continuity

NIS2 requires organizations to establish processes that ensure business continuity during significant cyber incidents. Box supports these efforts with tools and practices that align with industry standards such as ISO/IEC 22301 standards for business continuity and disaster recovery.

Here are ways in which use of Box services and features can assist:

Providing a highly available cloud platform: Box leverages multiple geographically distributed data centers and public cloud providers and typically achieves 99.9% or higher uptime.
Ensuring redundancy planning: Files uploaded to Box are automatically backed up in a secondary location to enhance data availability.
Supporting version history and backup: Box allows organizations to recover previous file versions to safeguard against accidental deletions or malicious changes.
Automating policy-driven retention: Box Governance provides organizations with tools to helpprotect, maintain, and govern their data.

Incident Handling

NIS2 requires organizations to have robust processes for detecting, reporting, and responding to incidents. Organizations must report significant incidents within 24 hours of discovery, submit a detailed report within 72 hours, and provide a comprehensive final report within one month. It is important for organizations to ensure they have a clear and up-to-date understanding of EU guidance to determine whether an incident qualifies as significant and requires reporting to their applicable regulator.

Box’s incident handling capabilities align with international frameworks, such as ISO/IEC 27001 and NIST incident handling standards. Here are some ways in which Box services and features can assist:

Providing real-time detection: Box Shield identifies unusual activities, such as suspicious downloads or access patterns, and sends alerts for immediate action.
Automated workflows: Box integrates with tools like Jira and Slack to streamline incident reporting, task assignments, and team coordination.
Maintaining detailed logs: Box provides comprehensive audit logs and administrative reporting organizations can integrate with other third-party tools and services.

Configuring Box to Support NIS2 Compliance

While Box offers tools to support compliance readiness, each customer must conduct their own due diligence to meet NIS2 obligations and configure the Box platform according to their organization’s specific requirements. A key resource for this process is the Box Admin Console, which provides organizations with flexibility and control over their compliance efforts, with reporting and security at its core. The Admin Console grants access to capabilities including but not limited to:

Strengthening Access and Threat Detection: Enable Single Sign-On (SSO), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), and Box Shield to monitor anomalies and secure data.
Enforcing Retention and Governance Policies: Use Box Governance to automate retention, defensible deletion, and content classification.
Enhancing Logging and Monitoring: Leverage Box’s comprehensive audit logs to track user and admin activity or visibility, accountability, and forensic analysis.

Learn More About How Box Can Help

As NIS2 enforcement approaches, organizations must ensure they are adequately prepared. While we maintain our steadfast commitment to offering products and services with best-in-class privacy protection, security, and compliance, the information provided above does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice; we strongly encourage our customers to perform their own due diligence when assessing their compliance with the NIS2 Directive. In addition, please note that the information provided above concerning NIS2 is subject to change as finalized guidance is pending from regulatory bodies in the EU.

Contact our sales team to learn more about how Box can support NIS2.