Article 19 Reporting of major ICT-related incidents and voluntary notification of significant cyber threats

Summary What does Article 19 of the DORA regulation say?

This article is the core incident reporting article in DORA, establishing the mandatory obligation for financial entities to report major ICT-related incidents to their relevant competent authority.

It builds directly on Article 18, which sets out how incidents are classified, and connects to Article 20, which defines the templates and timelines used for the actual reports.

The article structures reporting as a staged process — an initial notification, intermediate updates, and a final report — and also addresses the voluntary notification of significant cyber threats.

Beyond the obligations on financial entities, the article maps out a detailed information-sharing chain that flows upward from competent authorities to the ESAs, the ECB, resolution authorities, and CSIRTs, ensuring that major incidents can be assessed for cross-border impact across the EU financial system.

Important points:

Report major ICT-related incidents to your relevant competent authority using a staged reporting process: an initial notification, intermediate updates, and a final report once root cause analysis is complete.
You may outsource the reporting obligation to a third-party service provider, but responsibility for fulfilling the requirements remains entirely with the financial entity.
Competent authorities are required to cascade incident details to a broad network of bodies, including the ESAs, the ECB, resolution authorities, and CSIRTs, to enable assessment of cross-border impact and coordinated response.

Springlex's summary of the article, a reading aid, not a substitute for the legal text.

1. Financial entities shall report major ICT-related incidents to the relevant competent authority as referred to in Article 46 in accordance with paragraph 4 of this Article.
2. Where a financial entity is subject to supervision by more than one national competent authority referred to in Article 46, Member States shall designate a single competent authority as the relevant competent authority responsible for carrying out the functions and duties provided for in this Article.
3. Credit institutions classified as significant, in accordance with Article 6(4) of Regulation (EU) No 1024/2013, shall report major ICT-related incidents to the relevant national competent authority designated in accordance with Article 4 of Directive 2013/36/EU, which shall immediately transmit that report to the ECB.
4. For the purpose of the first subparagraph, financial entities shall produce, after collecting and analysing all relevant information, the initial notification and reports referred to in paragraph 4 of this Article using the templates referred to in Article 20 and submit them to the competent authority. In the event that a technical impossibility prevents the submission of the initial notification using the template, financial entities shall notify the competent authority about it via alternative means.
5. The initial notification and reports referred to in paragraph 4 shall include all information necessary for the competent authority to determine the significance of the major ICT-related incident and assess possible cross-border impacts.
6. Without prejudice to the reporting pursuant to the first subparagraph by the financial entity to the relevant competent authority, Member States may additionally determine that some or all financial entities shall also provide the initial notification and each report referred to in paragraph 4 of this Article using the templates referred to in Article 20 to the competent authorities or the computer security incident response teams (CSIRTs) designated or established in accordance with Directive (EU) 2022/2555.
1. Financial entities may, on a voluntary basis, notify significant cyber threats to the relevant competent authority when they deem the threat to be of relevance to the financial system, service users or clients. The relevant competent authority may provide such information to other relevant authorities referred to in paragraph 6.
2. Credit institutions classified as significant, in accordance with Article 6(4) of Regulation (EU) No 1024/2013, may, on a voluntary basis, notify significant cyber threats to relevant national competent authority, designated in accordance with Article 4 of Directive 2013/36/EU, which shall immediately transmit the notification to the ECB.
3. Member States may determine that those financial entities that on a voluntary basis notify in accordance with the first subparagraph may also transmit that notification to the CSIRTs designated or established in accordance with Directive (EU) 2022/2555.
1. Where a major ICT-related incident occurs and has an impact on the financial interests of clients, financial entities shall, without undue delay as soon as they become aware of it, inform their clients about the major ICT-related incident and about the measures that have been taken to mitigate the adverse effects of such incident.
2. In the case of a significant cyber threat, financial entities shall, where applicable, inform their clients that are potentially affected of any appropriate protection measures which the latter may consider taking.
1. Financial entities shall, within the time limits to be laid down in accordance with Article 20, first paragraph, point (a), point (ii), submit the following to the relevant competent authority:
  1. an initial notification;
  2. an intermediate report after the initial notification referred to in point (a), as soon as the status of the original incident has changed significantly or the handling of the major ICT-related incident has changed based on new information available, followed, as appropriate, by updated notifications every time a relevant status update is available, as well as upon a specific request of the competent authority;
  3. a final report, when the root cause analysis has been completed, regardless of whether mitigation measures have already been implemented, and when the actual impact figures are available to replace estimates.
1. Financial entities may outsource, in accordance with Union and national sectoral law, the reporting obligations under this Article to a third-party service provider. In case of such outsourcing, the financial entity remains fully responsible for the fulfilment of the incident reporting requirements.
1. Upon receipt of the initial notification and of each report referred to in paragraph 4, the competent authority shall, in a timely manner, provide details of the major ICT-related incident to the following recipients based, as applicable, on their respective competences:
  1. EBA, ESMA or EIOPA;
  2. the ECB, in the case of financial entities referred to in Article 2(1), points (a), (b) and (d);
  3. the competent authorities, single points of contact or CSIRTs designated or established in accordance with Directive (EU) 2022/2555;
  4. the resolution authorities, as referred to in Article 3 of Directive 2014/59/EU, and the Single Resolution Board (SRB) with respect to entities referred to in Article 7(2) of Regulation (EU) No 806/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council(³⁷), and with respect to entities and groups referred to in Article 7(4)(b) and (5) of Regulation (EU) No 806/2014 if such details concern incidents that pose a risk to ensuring critical functions within the meaning of Article 2(1), point (35), of Directive 2014/59/EU; and
  5. other relevant public authorities under national law.
1. Following receipt of information in accordance with paragraph 6, EBA, ESMA or EIOPA and the ECB, in consultation with ENISA and in cooperation with the relevant competent authority, shall assess whether the major ICT-related incident is relevant for competent authorities in other Member States. Following that assessment, EBA, ESMA or EIOPA shall, as soon as possible, notify relevant competent authorities in other Member States accordingly. The ECB shall notify the members of the European System of Central Banks on issues relevant to the payment system. Based on that notification, the competent authorities shall, where appropriate, take all of the necessary measures to protect the immediate stability of the financial system.
1. The notification to be done by ESMA pursuant to paragraph 7 of this Article shall be without prejudice to the responsibility of the competent authority to urgently transmit the details of the major ICT-related incident to the relevant authority in the host Member State, where a central securities depository has significant cross-border activity in the host Member State, the major ICT-related incident is likely to have severe consequences for the financial markets of the host Member State and where there are cooperation arrangements among competent authorities related to the supervision of financial entities.

Relevant recitals

Recital 22 Divergent incident reporting requirements

ICT-related incident reporting thresholds and taxonomies vary significantly at national level. While common ground may be achieved through the relevant work undertaken by the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) established by Regulation (EU) 2019/881 of the European Parliament and of the Council(¹¹) and the Cooperation Group under Directive (EU) 2022/2555, divergent approaches on setting the thresholds and use of taxonomies still exist, or can emerge, for the remainder of financial entities. Due to those divergences, there are multiple requirements that financial entities must comply with, especially when operating across several Member States and when part of a financial group. Moreover, such divergences have the potential to hinder the creation of further uniform or centralised Union mechanisms that speed up the reporting process and support a quick and smooth exchange of information between competent authorities, which is crucial for addressing ICT risk in the event of large-scale attacks with potentially systemic consequences.

Recital 24 Robust ICT-related incident reporting regime

To enable competent authorities to fulfil supervisory roles by acquiring a complete overview of the nature, frequency, significance and impact of ICT-related incidents and to enhance the exchange of information between relevant public authorities, including law enforcement authorities and resolution authorities, this Regulation should lay down a robust ICT-related incident reporting regime whereby the relevant requirements address current gaps in financial services law, and remove existing overlaps and duplications to alleviate costs. It is essential to harmonise the ICT-related incident reporting regime by requiring all financial entities to report to their competent authorities through a single streamlined framework as set out in this Regulation. In addition, the ESAs should be empowered to further specify relevant elements for the ICT-related incident reporting framework, such as taxonomy, timeframes, data sets, templates and applicable thresholds. To ensure full consistency with Directive (EU) 2022/2555, financial entities should be allowed, on a voluntary basis, to notify significant cyber threats to the relevant competent authority, when they consider that the cyber threat is of relevance to the financial system, service users or clients.

Recital 51 Streamlined ICT-related incident reporting

The propagators of cyber-attacks tend to pursue financial gains directly at the source, thus exposing financial entities to significant consequences. To prevent ICT systems from losing integrity or becoming unavailable, and hence to avoid data breaches and damage to physical ICT infrastructure, the reporting of major ICT-related incidents by financial entities should be significantly improved and streamlined. ICT-related incident reporting should be harmonised through the introduction of a requirement for all financial entities to report directly to their relevant competent authorities. Where a financial entity is subject to supervision by more than one national competent authority, Member States should designate a single competent authority as the addressee of such reporting. Credit institutions classified as significant in accordance with Article 6(4) of Council Regulation (EU) No 1024/2013(¹⁹) should submit such reporting to the national competent authorities, which should subsequently transmit the report to the European Central Bank (ECB).

Recital 53 Materiality thresholds and reporting timelines

While all financial entities should be required to carry out incident reporting, that requirement is not expected to affect all of them in the same manner. Indeed, relevant materiality thresholds, as well as reporting timelines, should be duly adjusted, in the context of delegated acts based on the regulatory technical standards to be developed by the ESAs, with a view to covering only major ICT-related incidents. In addition, the specificities of financial entities should be taken into account when setting timelines for reporting obligations.

Table of contents

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