In 2026, compliance with the NIS2 directive has become a critical business factor for entering the EU market. According to the ENISA Threat Landscape 2025, 4,875 incidents were analyzed between July 1, 2024, and June 30, 2025, with 53.7% of affected organizations belonging to the "essential entities" category. For Ukrainian companies aiming to work with European enterprise clients, this necessitates a review of their cloud infrastructure design approaches.
NIS2 as a new standard for EU market access
Many businesses view NIS2 merely as a compliance expense. However, today it is an investment that removes barriers to the European market. ENISA statistics indicate that 27.7% of data breaches occur within digital infrastructure and services. Compliance with the directive is not just a regulatory requirement but a confirmation of reliability for enterprise clients.
Architectural segmentation: minimizing the blast radius
The foundation of NIS2 compliance is architectural data segmentation. Instead of monolithic systems where any vulnerability can paralyze the entire business, it is advisable to use a Security by Design approach. For example, solutions built on the UnityBase platform allow for the implementation of Row-level security (RLS) and Attribute-level security. This isolates critical data at the business logic level, which significantly minimizes the blast radius during incidents.
Calculating resilience costs through FinOps
Transitioning to a resilient architecture requires transparent cost management. The FinOps framework helps make cloud spending a shared responsibility between engineering, finance, and business. Although FinOps is a financial framework, it allows for the evaluation of the unit economics of each module. Modeling costs at the infrastructure design stage, as recommended by Azure Well-Architected, is cheaper than fixing architectural errors post-factum.
Five pillars of cyber readiness
According to the Cisco methodology, infrastructure readiness is assessed across five areas: Identity Intelligence, Machine Trustworthiness, Network Resilience, Cloud Reinforcement, and AI Fortification. For Ukrainian developers, integrating these pillars into the development process is a necessary step to reach a level of maturity that meets the expectations of European partners. It is important to remember that no regulation guarantees absolute protection, but it sets the necessary minimum for effective risk management.
| Maturity Level | Infrastructure Description |
| Ad-hoc | Situational security, lack of segmentation |
| Defined | Basic governance policies and start of segmentation |
| Managed | Full architectural segmentation and integration of 5 security pillars |
| Optimized | Sovereign Cloud and automated incident monitoring |
FAQ
How does NIS2 affect the work of a Ukrainian product company with clients in the EU?
NIS2 compliance is becoming the mandatory regulatory minimum for working with European enterprise clients. Ignoring these requirements can lead to the loss of contracts at the pre-qualification stage.
Is FinOps a tool for ensuring cybersecurity under NIS2?
No, FinOps is a financial framework. It provides cost transparency and allows for visibility into the cost of security solutions, which indirectly contributes to effective cloud infrastructure management.
How can cloud architecture be changed to meet data segmentation requirements?
It is necessary to implement segmentation at the data and service levels. Using RLS and RBAC tools at the platform level allows for the separation of data access and the isolation of critical modules.