Understanding NESA Compliance
National Electronic Security Authority (NESA), now known as the Signals Intelligence Agency (SIA), is a UAE federal authority. It is responsible for strengthening the cybersecurity posture of the UAE. Hence, the administration aims to define cybersecurity guidelines for organizations for keeping their cybersecurity aligned with international best practices and avoid cybersecurity threats.
NESA has developed Information Assurance (IA) Standards that describe the guidelines to establish a minimum level of security across all critical organizations. NESA has mandated implementing the compliance requirements outlined in IA Standards.
Even the organizations that are not identified as critical are encouraged by NESA to follow the guidelines to raise the national security standards voluntarily. Companies that are NESA compliant enhance their cybersecurity strength and threat awareness while minimizing risk levels.
What does it involve?
The UAE IA Standards defines guidelines that provide a life cycle roadmap to implement, maintain, and improve information security. NESA compliance service providers also take the same approach that defines activities such as:
- Understanding the organization’s and sector’s security requirements to select and establish appropriate controls
- Performing risk and vulnerability assessments to identify any gaps and come up with risk treatment plans
- Planning and implementing the necessary security controls to mitigate risks
- Monitoring and reviewing implemented controls to check the effectiveness and determine and deviations
- Improving constantly based on the derived objectives
UAE-NESA Standards
Here are some of the security controls established in UAE-NESA compliance standards
| Management Control Family | Security Management |
|---|---|
| M1: Strategy and Planning | T1: Asset Management |
| M2: Information Security Risk Management | T2: Physical and Environmental Security |
| M3: Awareness and Training | T3: Operations Management |
| M4: Human Resource Security | T4: Communications |
| M5: Compliance | T5: Access Control |
| M6: Performance Evaluation and Improvement | T6: Third-Party Security |
| T7: Information Systems Acquisition, Development, and Maintenance | |
| T8: Information Security Incident Management | |
| T9: Information Security Continuity Management |
UAE IA Standards lists a total of 188 security controls, which are further classified in a priority manner based on their impact. NESA suggests implementing the controls with priority 1 first and then priority 2 to 4.
| Priority | Controls |
| P1 | 39 |
| P2 | 69 |
| P3 | 35 |
| P4 | 45 |
SharkStriker Approach
NESA Compliance Management Solution
SharkStriker follows the same approach as highlighted in the IA Standards for NESA compliance. We start by establishing the requirements for information security for your entity and move on with the gap and risk assessments. Based on the assessment results, we then create treatment plans, define and implement security controls, rollout technology, and finally conduct timely audits to ensure continuous improvement.
SharkStriker’s extensive range of services and all-in-one solution covers everything right from protection, detection, and response to compliance and awareness. Such a vast array of NESA compliance services and solutions and the expertise in crafting customized offerings enable us to help organizations become NESA compliant.
SharkStriker’s NESA Compliance Management Solution
| Managed Assessments and Tests | Managed Cybersecurity Services | Managed Endpoint Security | Logging and Reporting | Continuous Improvement |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vulnerability assessments | Managed detection and response | Endpoint protection | SIEM-as-a-Service | Periodic audits and reviews |
| Penetration testing | Extended detection and response (XDR) | Patch Management | Managed SIEM | Reviews documentation |
| Network and application testing | EDR-as-a-Service | Remote firewall installation and monitoring | 24×7 logging and event management | Security incident management |
| Compliance testing | 24×7 monitoring | Firewall assessment and audits | File integrity and monitoring (FIM) | Compliance audits |
| Constant threat hunting and response | Preventative security for negating attacks |
SharkStriker’s NESA Compliance Management Solution Comprises 5 Components
Solution Component 1: Managed Assessments and Testing
The first component of our NESA Compliance Management Solution focuses on assessing and testing your current infrastructure. This covers the following requirements:
- Understanding business requirements
- Identifying critical assets to build ISMS
- Identifying NESA compliance gaps and risks
- Develop risk treatment plans
Solution Component 2: Managed Cybersecurity Services
The second component focuses on providing complete security through our managed cybersecurity services. We offer fully managed EDR, MDR, and XDR solutions in our service model.
- Continuous monitoring and threat hunting
- 24/7 Access to modern SOC
- MDR Ultimate solution covers protection, detection, response, compliance, and awareness, basically everything
Solution Component 3: Managed Endpoint Security
The third component in the solution includes deploying endpoint security tools such as next-gen endpoint protection including anti-ransomware, anti-exploit, anti-phishing, baseline security and patch assessment, etc.
- Comprehensive detection and prevention aligned to MITRE ATT&CK
- Signatureless Machine learning-based threat prevention engine
- File Integrity Monitoring (FIM)
- Periodic security assessment using CIS baseline for effectiveness
- Unified visibility through a single dashboard platform
Solution Component 4: Logging and Reporting
Solution component four aims at enhancing monitoring and threat hunting capabilities with our robust SIEM solution for logging and reporting, providing you with the following benefits.
- Improved threat detection and response
- Continuous security operations
- Simplified compliance reporting
- Enhanced visibility with UBA
Solution Component 5: Continuous Improvement
Lastly, our experts will periodically run assessments and audits on the NESA compliance management solution for continuous improvement.
- Check the effectiveness of proposed measures and security controls
- Determine and mitigate any compliance deviations
- Comprehensive reports making improvisations
- Achieve and stay NESA compliant
Why SharkStriker?
Compliance Specialists
SharkStriker’s compliance experts, having profound industry-specific knowledge, keep up with the constantly changing NESA regulations to ensure that your business consistently meets the latest regulations.
End-to-End Compliance
Our compliance services cover all the globally reputed regulations, including NESA, GDPR, SAMA, PCI DSS, ISO 27001, etc. We can also help determine what cybersecurity regulations you need to comply with.