Cybersecurity for the financial sector: banking, insurance and servicing.
Recurring, auditable operations for entities under supervision of ECB, EBA, CNMV, Bank of Spain and DGSFP. Vulnerability management, SOC/MDR, technical audit, pentesting, Red Team (TLPT), continuity and DORA with evidence that stands up to internal audit, external audit and supervisors.
Context
What we understand about the financial sector
The financial sector doesn't tolerate declarative cybersecurity. The entity lives with active supervision, demanding internal and external audits, an ICT perimeter extended to critical third parties, and a regulatory landscape where DORA, EBA, NIS2, Solvency II or Basel III coexist and overlap. What gets executed must be demonstrable through evidence, and what gets reported must be defensible before the supervisor.
On top of that, there's an operational reality: asset bases spread across on-prem, public cloud, regulated SaaS and global group providers; identities integrated into Entra ID or AD with granular privileges and segregation requirements; logs and traceability that must cover years per retention policy; and a risk committee agenda where cybersecurity coexists with operational, credit, market and liquidity risk.
That's why when we serve a financial entity we don't show up with templates: we show up with an honest diagnosis of the applicable framework, an integration plan with their lines of defense and an operational cycle that is measured, reportable and revalidable. We don't sell "having a tool": we sell operations with judgement and evidence.
Sector perimeter
Subsectors we cover
Under the "financial sector" umbrella, each type of entity faces its own regulatory framework and challenges. We cover the following profiles, adapting methodology, evidence and reporting to each case.
Banking
Retail, corporate and investment banking, international banking.
Insurance
Life and non-life insurers, reinsurance, international group subsidiaries.
Financial servicing
Debt servicing, asset management, real-estate and financial servicing.
Payments and cards
Payment providers, processors, entities subject to PCI-DSS.
Asset management
Asset managers, securities firms, investment services entities.
Regulated crypto-assets
Crypto-asset service providers under MiCA and DORA.
Sector ICT providers
Regulated technology when integrated into the critical supply chain of financial entities.
Core services
What we deliver to the sector, on a recurring basis
Most of the work we do for financial entities is continuous operation, not isolated project. These are the building blocks we combine depending on the entity type and its supervisory framework.
Vulnerability management
Continuous identification, prioritization and remediation across the asset base (on-prem, cloud, endpoints, exposed perimeter). Cycle measured with KRIs and reporting to Risk/CISO, aligned with DORA requirements on ICT risk management.
See vulnerability management →
24/7 SOC/MDR with SLAs
Detection, investigation and 24/7 response with playbooks and audit-ready reporting. Integration with Microsoft 365/Defender, SIEM, EDR, cloud and ticketing. Signal → decision → containment → revalidation, measured and defensible before the supervisor.
See managed SOC/MDR →
Infrastructure and network audit
Technical review of network, firewall, segmentation, Active Directory, M365/Entra ID, hardening and hybrid environments. Prioritized backlog and 30/60/90 plan with evidence. Useful for internal supervision and external audit.
See infra & network audit →
Pentesting and Red Team (TLPT)
Web, infra, cloud and identity pentesting; objective-based Red Team exercises, TIBER-EU-aligned scenarios oriented to TLPT for significant entities, detection/response validation and closure with remediation and revalidation.
See Pentesting & Red Team →
Business continuity and operational resilience
BIA, RTO/RPO, continuity and recovery plans aligned with DORA (arts. 11–12) and ISO 22301. Tests and evidence that allow demonstrating resilience to the supervisor and in real incidents — not only on paper.
See business continuity →
DORA — digital operational resilience
Diagnosis, roadmap, ICT risk management, critical third parties, incident reporting and TLPT. Fit with ECB/EBA/CNMV/Bank of Spain/DGSFP supervision depending on entity type.
See DORA service →
ISO 27001 as ISMS baseline
ISO 27001 implementation and support to certification. Reusable for DORA, NIS2 and group policies. Hard2bit is ISO 27001 certified: we don't sell what we haven't done ourselves.
See ISO 27001 →
NIS2 (cross-over with financial sector)
Some NIS2 obligations impact financial entities and especially their critical ICT providers. We map the overlap with DORA to avoid duplicated effort and optimize common evidence.
See NIS2 →
Regulatory landscape
The frameworks we work with every day
A financial entity is not subject to a single framework, but to a stack of overlapping ones. Our approach aims for a single body of controls and evidence that covers several at once, rather than adding duplicated effort.
DORA — Regulation (EU) 2022/2554
Digital operational resilience for the EU financial sector. Applicable since January 2025. Five pillars: ICT governance and risk management, incident management, resilience testing, ICT third-party risk, and information sharing.
EBA Guidelines on ICT Risk
EBA guidelines on ICT risk management for banking entities: governance, risk analysis and treatment, information security, ICT operations management, continuity and outsourcing.
BCBS 239 — risk data aggregation
Basel Committee principles for effective risk data aggregation and reporting. Applies to systemic entities and conditions data architecture, traceability and evidence quality.
NIS2 — Directive (EU) 2022/2555
Applies to financial entities and to critical ICT providers. Partial overlap with DORA: we leverage common controls to reduce duplication and simplify governance.
Solvency II
For insurance entities: operational risk governance (including ICT), ORSA, critical third parties and reporting requirements to DGSFP.
PCI-DSS v4
For payments and card handling: reinforced technical and organizational controls, auditable evidence and alignment with financial supervisory frameworks.
ISO 27001 and 22301
International standards for information security management and business continuity. A solid, reusable baseline to meet DORA, EBA and NIS2 with a single body of evidence.
CNMV, Bank of Spain and DGSFP
Depending on the nature of the entity, information, significant incident and audit requirements vary. We adapt reporting and evidence to the corresponding supervisor.
For a detailed comparison, see our guide ENS vs ISO 27001 vs NIS2 vs DORA, where we explain differences, overlaps and where to start.
How we work
Integration process with a financial entity
Diagnosis and scoping
We understand the entity type (banking, insurance, servicing, payments, asset management), its supervisory framework and group structure. We identify critical assets, ICT third parties and regulatory obligations that actually apply.
Integration with Risk, Compliance and CISO
The service integrates with the three lines of defense, the risk committee and internal audit teams. We don't run in parallel: we report into the circuits the entity already has in place.
Recurring operations with SLAs
Vulnerability management with cadence, SOC/MDR with criticality-based SLAs, periodic audits and resilience exercises. What is committed is measured, reported and reviewed.
Audit-ready evidence
Traceability, logs, reports and documentation in a format useful for internal audit, external audit and, where applicable, for the supervisor. No double maintenance, no duplicating the same work in two places.
Executive and board-level reporting
KRIs, dashboards and periodic reports oriented to top management, risk committee and board. Business language, not a technical dump. Cybersecurity lives on the entity's governance agendas.
Continuous improvement
After incidents, TLPT exercises and audits, we extract lessons with concrete action plans. The cycle closes with revalidation, not with a report filed in a repository.
Why Hard2bit
What makes us different when working with financial entities
Real, recurring operations across European financial sector
We work on a recurring basis with listed international banking groups, insurance subsidiaries of financial groups, European financial servicing operators (debt and asset management), and real-estate-financial servicing in Spain. We deliver vulnerability management, systems administration and security operations under the frameworks their supervision demands. We speak with judgement because we execute.
Certifications that fit the client's framework
ISO 27001, ISO 22301, ISO 20000-1, ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certified. ENS HIGH category certification (RD 311/2022). Spanish Innovative SME label. These certifications are verifiable, not declarative, and make it easier to integrate into the critical provider chain of a regulated entity.
Fit with audit and supervision
A financial entity needs evidence that is defensible before internal auditors, external auditors and, in certain cases, the supervisor. We design the service from the start so that the output serves those circuits, not only the operational team.
Confidentiality and master agreements
Experience operating under strict NDAs, master agreements with international parent companies and access protocols for sensitive information. Specific details are shared in direct conversation, not on a public page.
Financial sector FAQ
Are we subject to DORA? From when?
DORA (Regulation EU 2022/2554) applies from 17 January 2025. It affects a broad set of financial entities — banking, insurance, investment services, asset managers, payments, regulated crypto-asset providers, etc. — and, indirectly but meaningfully, their critical ICT providers. The exact scope depends on the entity type and on function delegations. In an initial diagnosis we close the applicable scope without over-inflating requirements.
How does vulnerability management fit DORA arts. 9–10?
DORA arts. 9 and 10 require a robust ICT risk management framework covering asset identification and protection, detection, response and recovery. Recurring vulnerability management — with continuous discovery, criticality-based prioritization, measured remediation and executive reporting — is a central piece of that framework. We deliver it as a continuous service, not as point-in-time snapshots.
Do you deliver TLPT and TIBER-EU-style exercises?
Yes. For significant financial entities, advanced resilience testing (TLPT) is a DORA requirement (arts. 26–27). We execute Red Team exercises with threat-intelligence-driven objectives, coordinated with the Blue/SOC team where appropriate, and close with accompanied remediation and revalidation.
How does the service integrate with our CISO and Risk Committee?
We design the service to integrate with the three lines of defense: operations/engineering (1st), Risk and Compliance (2nd) and internal audit (3rd). We report on a defined cadence to the CISO and, where applicable, to the risk committee, with business-oriented KRIs. We don't create another parallel flow: we use the one the entity already has.
Are deliverables usable for external audit and supervisor?
Yes. Reports, logs, remediation traceability and evidence are produced in audit-ready format. They have been used in external audits of international financial groups and, when required by the entity, escalated to the supervisor in the context of significant incident reporting.
Do you work with foreign-parent groups and global policies?
Yes. Part of our recurring portfolio consists of Spanish subsidiaries of international financial groups with global policies and providers. We adapt the service to the parent's frameworks (global controls, proprietary frameworks, strategic group providers) while keeping local execution and bilingual (Spanish/English) interaction.
What about NIS2 if we are already covered by DORA?
DORA is lex specialis for the financial part: where DORA applies, NIS2 does not duplicate obligations for the entity. However, NIS2 still matters for critical ICT providers to the financial sector and for entity activities not covered by DORA. We map the overlap to avoid duplicated effort and evidence.
What confidentiality do you offer?
We routinely operate under NDAs with access to sensitive information. We do not publish named references of financial clients in landings or public materials, except under explicit authorization and for a specific purpose. Details are handled in direct conversation.
Go deeper
Related services
Regulatory
DORA
Diagnosis, roadmap, ICT risk management, third parties, incidents and TLPT. The central regulatory service for banking, insurance and financial entities under European supervision.
Pillar
Compliance and GRC
Integrated governance, risk and compliance: a single body of evidence for ISO 27001, DORA, NIS2, ENS and group internal frameworks. Reuse and executive reporting.
Service
Managed SOC/MDR
24/7 SOC/MDR with SLAs, playbooks, noise reduction, coordinated response and audit-ready reporting for internal audit and supervisors.
A financial entity? Let's talk, no fluff.
We'll propose an honest diagnosis of the framework that applies, a fit with your lines of defense and a recurring operations plan backed by evidence. No generic templates, no inflated reporting.
Talk to a specialist