UAE Information Assurance (IA) Compliance Assessment

We assess your organisation against the UAE Information Assurance Standard v2.1, issued by the UAE Cyber Security Council in November 2025.

You get a control-by-control view of all 134 controls, a Statement of Applicability and a report written for submission to your regulator.

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When do you need a UAE IA compliance assessment?

The standard applies to UAE government entities, federal authorities and non-government Critical Information Infrastructure. That last group includes companies under regulated financial licences, such as Stored Value Facility (SVF) holders. Organisations usually come to us at one of these points:

Before or during a licence application
When the regulator asks for an independent assessment of information security.
When moving to v2.1
The November 2025 version restructured the control set, and evidence prepared for older NESA IA Standards no longer maps one-to-one.
When a government client or partner asks for it
As a condition of a contract or of connecting to their systems.
Ahead of a regulator review or an internal audit
To know your gaps before someone else lists them.
After major change
Migration to cloud, a new product line, an acquisition or a security incident.

What we assess

UAE IA v2.1 contains 134 controls and 449 sub-controls in 15 families: six management (M1–M6) and nine technical (T1–T9). 70 controls are always applicable; 64 apply depending on your risk assessment. We cover the full set.

1. Governance and documentation

Whether you run a working information security management system, not just a folder of policies. Roles and responsibilities, document control, asset inventory and classification, HR security, awareness and training, supplier management, legal and regulatory mapping.

2. Risk management (M2)

The core of the standard and the part regulators read first. Risk methodology, risk register, treatment plan, residual risk acceptance and the Statement of Applicability required by control M2.3.4. If you don't have an SoA, we prepare it.

3. Technical controls (T1–T9)

Evidence-based review of how the technical controls actually work:

Hardening and patching

Identity and access management

Privileged access and MFA

Encryption at rest and in transit

Logging and monitoring coverage

Vulnerability management

Backup and recovery

Network segmentation

Remote access

4. Architecture and infrastructure

Security architecture of your cloud or hybrid environment: network access controls, least privilege, separation of production and non-production, secrets management, SIEM and alerting coverage, disaster recovery and RTO/RPO, external attack surface.

5. Compliance mapping and gap assessment

Everything above, consolidated into one matrix across all 134 controls: control ID, priority (P1–P4), applicability, status, evidence, gap and recommendation.

What you receive

Executive summary
Overall compliance posture, key gaps by priority, readiness statement and auditor independence declaration. Ready to attach to a regulator submission.
Detailed assessment report
The main audit document: scope, methodology, evidence, findings for every control family, prioritised recommendations.
Statement of Applicability
All 134 controls mapped to your risks, with applicability, status and evidence reference.
Risk treatment appendix
Gaps ranked P1 to P4, treatment option for each, suggested owner and timeline.
Findings debrief
A walkthrough with your security and compliance team before the final report is issued.

Our approach: from scoping to a submission-ready report

1. Scoping

We confirm which entities, systems and locations are in scope and which controls apply to you.

2. Document and evidence review

You share policies, the risk register and configuration evidence; we check each against the standard.

3. Interviews and technical validation

We speak to the people who run the controls and verify configurations in your environment, with read-only access.

4. Gap analysis

Findings are ranked by priority under the standard and by the risk they carry for your business.

5. Reporting and debrief

We walk you through the results, take your comments and issue the final report.

A typical assessment takes around 100–150 hours over 4–6 weeks.

FAQ

Is UAE IAS the same as NESA compliance?

They are versions of the same national framework. Earlier versions were published as the NESA UAE Information Assurance Standards, and many organisations still call it "NESA compliance". The current version is UAE IA Standard v2.1, issued by the UAE Cyber Security Council in November 2025. We assess against v2.1.

How is UAE IA different from the TDRA Information Assurance Regulation (IAR)?

The IAR was issued by TDRA in 2014 and built on the earlier standard. If your regulator or client refers to the IAR, tell us at scoping and we will map findings to the document they name.

Does an ISO 27001 certificate cover UAE IA?

Not fully. The standards overlap heavily, and UAE IA v2.1 references ISO/IEC 27001:2022 directly, so a certified ISMS saves a lot of work. UAE IA still has its own control set, priority tiers and SoA requirements that ISO 27001 does not check.

Is penetration testing included?

The assessment reviews configurations and processes. If your regulator or internal policy needs technical testing evidence, we scope a penetration test separately.

Do you fix the gaps you find?

We give a prioritised treatment plan with a suggested owner for each gap. Hands-on remediation and re-assessment are quoted separately, so the assessment itself stays independent.

Find your UAE IA gaps before the regulator does

Tell us about your organisation and which regulator asked for the assessment. We will come back with a scope and a fixed quote.