NIS2 and GDPR Compliance: What EU Companies Must Do in 2026

Why 2026 Is the Year Compliance Gets Real

The NIS2 Directive has moved cybersecurity from a technical concern to a board level obligation across the European Union. Where the original rules covered a narrow set of operators, NIS2 now reaches thousands of medium and large companies in energy, transport, banking, health, digital infrastructure, public administration, manufacturing, and more. Combined with the continued enforcement of the General Data Protection Regulation, organizations in Croatia and the Netherlands face a clear message: security is now measured, documented, and audited.

For many businesses the challenge is not a lack of intent. It is knowing exactly what regulators expect and proving that controls actually work. That gap between policy and practice is where fines and breaches happen.

Who Is in Scope Under NIS2

NIS2 divides organizations into essential and important entities. Both categories carry binding obligations, and size thresholds mean that many companies that never considered themselves critical are now covered. If your organization operates in a listed sector and employs more than fifty people or reports significant annual turnover, you should assume you are in scope until proven otherwise.

• Governance: management bodies are directly accountable for approving and overseeing cybersecurity measures.
• Risk management: policies must be based on an all hazards approach that is reviewed regularly.
• Incident reporting: significant incidents must be reported to national authorities within tight deadlines, starting with an early warning.
• Supply chain security: the security of suppliers and service providers is now your responsibility to assess.

The Cost of Getting It Wrong

NIS2 allows for administrative fines that can reach tens of millions of euros or a percentage of global turnover, and it introduces the possibility of personal liability for senior managers. GDPR penalties remain equally serious, with the highest tier reaching twenty million euros or four percent of annual worldwide turnover. Beyond the fines, a public breach damages client trust in a way that is slow and expensive to repair.

A Practical Readiness Checklist

Compliance becomes manageable when it is broken into concrete steps rather than treated as a single audit. A realistic path looks like this:

• Map your assets and data. You cannot protect what you have not inventoried. Start with systems that process personal or operational data.
• Run a gap assessment. Compare current controls against NIS2 and GDPR requirements to find the real weaknesses.
• Test your defenses. A policy on paper is not evidence. Independent testing shows whether controls hold up against a real attacker.
• Prepare an incident response plan. Define roles, communication lines, and the reporting timeline before an incident forces you to improvise.
• Secure your supply chain. Review the security posture of vendors who touch your data or systems.

How Obventum Helps You Become Audit Ready

At Obventum we translate regulation into action for companies across Croatia and the Netherlands. Our penetration testing service produces the independent evidence that regulators and clients increasingly ask for, showing exactly where an attacker could get in and how to close the gap. For organizations that want to test their full detection and response capability, our red teaming engagements simulate a determined adversary from start to finish.

We pair technical testing with clear reporting that a management board can understand and act on. That means you receive not only a list of findings, but a prioritized roadmap that supports your NIS2 governance obligations and your GDPR accountability principle. Compliance stops being a once a year scramble and becomes a repeatable, defensible process.

Start With Evidence, Not Assumptions

The companies that handle NIS2 and GDPR well are the ones that treat security as an ongoing discipline rather than a checkbox. If you are unsure whether your controls would survive a real assessment, the fastest way to find out is to test them. Contact Obventum for a readiness review and turn compliance pressure into a genuine security advantage.