Cybersecurity represents one of the most critical challenges of the digital age. While the necessity to protect data, infrastructure, and privacy is indisputable, the regulatory approach can transform from a protection tool into an obstacle for innovation and security effectiveness itself. An excess of regulations can paradoxically create greater vulnerabilities than those it intends to prevent.

1. Technological Rigidity and Regulatory Obsolescence

Cyber threats constantly evolve, with new attack vectors emerging daily. Excessively detailed and prescriptive regulation risks crystallizing technologies and approaches that could become obsolete within a few months.

Main issues:

  • Regulations require years to be updated, while threats evolve in weeks
  • Imposition of specific technological standards that could become vulnerable
  • Difficulty in rapidly adopting new innovative security technologies

Consequences: Organizations find themselves forced to use outdated technologies, creating a false sense of security while cybercriminals exploit now-known vulnerabilities.

2. Bureaucratic Overhead and Distraction from Priorities

Complex regulation generates an administrative burden that diverts human and financial resources from substantial security activities. IT teams find themselves spending more time compiling compliance documents than on actual system protection.

Operational impacts:

  • Disproportionate budget allocation toward compliance activities rather than security technologies
  • Specialized personnel engaged in bureaucratic activities instead of monitoring and incident response
  • Slowing of decision-making processes to implement urgent security measures

3. Excessive Standardization and Reduction of Diversity

The imposition of uniform standards, while seeming logical, can create systemic vulnerabilities. When all organizations adopt the same protocols and technologies, a single exploit can simultaneously compromise thousands of systems.

Risks of technological monoculture:

  • Shared vulnerabilities that amplify attack impact
  • Loss of security advantage through obscurity and diversity
  • Ease for attackers in developing universal tools

4. Barriers to Security Innovation

Overly rigid regulations can discourage the development of innovative solutions, especially by startups and small companies that lack the resources to navigate complex regulatory frameworks.

Innovation obstacles:

  • High costs to obtain regulatory certifications and approvals
  • Long time-to-market for new security solutions
  • Preference for established but potentially less effective solutions

5. False Sense of Security and Compliance Theater

Formal compliance with regulations can create the illusion of being protected, while actual security remains inadequate. This phenomenon, known as "compliance theater," is particularly dangerous because it reduces vigilance and investments in substantial security.

Problem manifestations:

  • Focus on documentation rather than actual implementation
  • Minimal investments necessary to pass formal audits
  • Negligence toward threats not specifically provided for by regulation

6. Operational Complexity and Human Errors

Complex regulatory systems increase the probability of configuration and implementation errors. Complexity is the enemy of security, as it creates more opportunities for errors that can be exploited by attackers.

Complexity-related problems:

  • Incorrect configurations due to difficulty interpreting complex requirements
  • Accumulation of exceptions and workarounds that create vulnerabilities
  • Difficulty in training personnel on excessively articulated procedures

7. Limitations in Intelligence Sharing

Privacy and data protection regulations, while necessary, can limit the sharing of critical threat information between organizations and authorities. This information isolation reduces the effectiveness of collective defense.

Impacts on collective security:

  • Delays in spreading information about new threats
  • Inability to rapidly implement countermeasures based on shared intelligence
  • Fragmentation of knowledge about attacker tactics

8. Distortive Economic Effects

Excessive compliance costs can push organizations toward suboptimal solutions from a security standpoint but economically more sustainable, or even toward deliberate non-compliance.

Economic consequences:

  • Adverse selection toward less expensive but less secure solutions
  • Market concentration toward large suppliers capable of sustaining regulatory costs
  • Perverse incentives that favor formal compliance over substantial security

9. Impacts on Research and Development

Excessive regulatory restrictions can limit legitimate research in cybersecurity, preventing the development of new defense techniques and understanding of vulnerabilities.

Research limitations:

  • Difficulty obtaining authorizations for vulnerability research
  • Restrictions on the use of penetration testing techniques
  • Limitations on publishing sensitive but useful research results for the community

10. International Regulatory Fragmentation

In an interconnected world, divergent national regulations create operational complexity for multinational organizations and can create vulnerabilities in interconnections between systems subject to different regulatory regimes.

Fragmentation problems:

  • Difficulty in coherent security management across borders
  • Regulatory conflicts that can create security gaps
  • High costs to maintain multiple compliance

Recommendations for a Balanced Approach

Guiding Principles for Effective Regulation

Technological Flexibility: Regulations should specify security objectives rather than specific technologies, allowing the adoption of innovative solutions.

Proportionality: Requirements should be commensurate with actual risk and organizational capabilities, avoiding one-size-fits-all approaches.

Public-Private Collaboration: Active industry involvement in defining standards that are both effective and implementable.

Rapid Update Mechanisms: Simplified procedures for updating regulations in response to new threats.

Results Focus: Effectiveness evaluation based on real security metrics rather than formal compliance.

Case Study: The New European NIS2 and Cybersecurity Act Directives

The NIS2 Directive: High Ambitions, Concrete Risks

The NIS2 Directive (2022/2555) has replaced the previous NIS1 with the objective of "raising the common level of EU cybersecurity ambition, through a broader scope, clearer rules and stronger supervision tools." However, this expansion presents several problematic aspects from a practical security standpoint.

Excessive Sectoral Expansion NIS2 expands the number of covered sectors from 7 to a total of 15, including a very wide range of organizations that might not have the necessary competencies or resources to effectively implement complex security measures. This expansion risks creating:

  • Resource dilution: Supervisory authorities must now monitor a much larger number of entities, potentially reducing control effectiveness
  • One-size-fits-all approach: Sectors with very different risk profiles and technical capabilities are subject to similar requirements
  • Competency overstretch: Many organizations now included lack the necessary expertise to correctly interpret and implement requirements

Criminal Liability of Management NIS2 also introduces legal ramifications for management in case of non-compliance, creating a dangerous paradox: executives might prioritize documentary compliance over substantial security to avoid personal liability.

Disproportionate Sanctions Essential entities can be subject to sanctions of up to 10 million euros or 2% of worldwide annual turnover. These excessive sanctions can push organizations toward:

  • Defensive investments in compliance rather than effective security
  • Excessive outsourcing of responsibility to external consultants
  • Focus on documentation rather than security results

The Cybersecurity Act: Fragmentation and Innovation Barriers

The Cybersecurity Act strengthens the European cybersecurity agency (ENISA) and establishes a certification framework for products and services. While the intent is positive, implementation presents significant criticalities.

Certification Framework Complexity The EU Cybersecurity Certification Framework for ICT products enables tailored and risk-based EU certification schemes. However, this apparent flexibility hides operational complexity that can damage security:

  • Scheme multiplication: The EUCC framework for ICT products will be followed by a series of certification schemes covering cloud services, 5G mobile communications and artificial intelligence
  • Innovation barriers: Innovative startups and SMEs might be excluded from the market due to high certification costs
  • Technological rigidity: Certification processes might slow the adoption of emerging technologies

Impact on Competitiveness and Innovation Companies must now focus on ensuring compliance with new certification schemes, which can involve adapting their products, services and processes to meet specific cybersecurity requirements stipulated in certification schemes. This creates several problems:

  • Compliance costs: Significant investments required even before accessing the market
  • Extended development times: Certification cycles can significantly slow time-to-market
  • Forced standardization: Risk of convergence toward certified but not necessarily optimal solutions

Transversal Issues of New Regulations

Regulatory Overlap A single company might have to comply with CCPA in California, HIPAA for healthcare and NIST 800-53 for government contracts, leading to greater operational burden and compliance management costs. In the European context, the interaction between NIS2, Cybersecurity Act, GDPR and other regulations creates a regulatory labyrinth.

Approach Fragmentation The revised directive aims to remove divergences in cybersecurity requirements and implementation of cybersecurity measures in different member states. Paradoxically, however, national implementation can create new divergences, with different interpretations of requirements that further fragment the regulatory landscape.

Effects on Small Operators SMEs and startups, which are often the most innovative in the cybersecurity sector, risk being excluded from the market due to inability to sustain the costs and complexity of new regulations. This can lead to:

  • Market concentration toward large players
  • Reduced innovation in the sector
  • Increased costs for end consumers

Critical Assessment

While NIS2 and the Cybersecurity Act arise from legitimate intentions to improve European cybersecurity, their implementation presents significant risks:

  1. Rigidity vs. Agility: In a sector where the speed of threat evolution requires agility, these regulations introduce long and rigid processes

  2. Compliance vs. Security: The focus on formal compliance can divert attention from substantial security

  3. Innovation vs. Standardization: The push toward certification can stifle the innovation necessary to keep pace with emerging threats

  4. Costs vs. Benefits: High compliance costs might not translate into proportional security improvements

Conclusions

Cybersecurity requires a sophisticated regulatory approach that balances protection and operational effectiveness. Excessive regulation can paradoxically weaken security, creating rigidity, diverting resources from real priorities and generating a false sense of protection. The analysis of the new European NIS2 and Cybersecurity Act directives clearly illustrates these risks. While the intention to improve cybersecurity is praiseworthy, implementation presents criticalities that could compromise the very objectives they aim to achieve. The goal should not be the elimination of regulation, but its optimization to maximize security effectiveness while minimizing negative side effects. Only through a balanced, flexible and empirically-based approach can a truly secure and resilient digital ecosystem be built. The challenge for European and global policymakers is to create a regulatory framework that protects without stifling, that guides without excessively limiting, and that evolves at the same speed as the threats it intends to counter. The experience with NIS2 and the Cybersecurity Act should serve as a lesson for future regulatory initiatives, highlighting the importance of balancing security ambitions with operational pragmatism. In this delicate balance lies the future of cybersecurity in the digital age, where effective protection must go hand in hand with innovation and economic competitiveness.