The CRA is now the price of entry to the EU market

For decades, building security into a connected product was a choice. The EU Cyber Resilience Act (Regulation 2024/2847) ends that. It makes cybersecurity a legal precondition for placing any product with digital elements on the European market — and the clock is already running. Vulnerability and incident reporting obligations bite from September 2026; from December 2027, a product without demonstrable CRA conformity simply cannot carry the CE marking it needs to be sold.

The exposure is not theoretical. Non-compliance carries penalties of up to €15 million or 2.5% of global annual turnover, whichever is higher — alongside the more immediate commercial risk of being locked out of the EU entirely. For any manufacturer, importer or distributor that touches the European market, CRA readiness has moved from a future project to a present obligation.

EU CRA Enforcement Timeline

December 2024

Regulation in force

CRA published in the EU Official Journal. Compliance planning should begin now.

September 2026

Reporting obligations apply

Vulnerability and incident reporting to ENISA becomes mandatory. First hard deadline.

December 2027

Full compliance required

All essential requirements, CE marking, and conformity assessment obligations enforceable.

Knowing where you stand is the hard part

The CRA runs to hundreds of pages of articles and annexes. Translating that into "are we compliant, and if not, what exactly do we fix?" is a genuinely hard problem — and the usual answers fall short. A Big-4 readiness engagement runs into six figures, produces a single point-in-time report, and the moment the partner who understood your business walks out, the institutional knowledge walks with them. An internal spreadsheet drifts away from the regulation and won't survive scrutiny from a notified body. Neither gives you something you can re-run, defend, and improve against quarter after quarter.

And CRA compliance is not a one-off. It is a multi-year programme that has to be owned, evidenced, and demonstrably improving — because when a regulator or notified body asks "prove it," very few manufacturers will be perfect on day one. What earns credit is a disciplined, evidence-backed programme and a clear trajectory of closing the gap.

A defensible CRA programme your team owns

CyberAssure gives your own team the platform to run the assessment in-house. Every question is mapped to the CRA Article and Annex it tests; every answer pairs a self-assessment with an independent reviewer conclusion and an evidence-confidence rating; and every gap arrives referenced, prioritised, and ready to assign. The result is a defensible baseline, a CRA-cited remediation plan, and a full audit log — at a fraction of external consulting cost, with the expertise building inside your organisation instead of leaving with a contract. It runs entirely on your own machine; nothing is ever uploaded to CyberAssure.

The CRA works at two levels — so the platform does too

Here is the one structural thing that shapes everything: the CRA imposes two distinct kinds of duty. Some apply once, to the organisation — governance, vulnerability handling, incident reporting, supply-chain due diligence. Others apply to every individual product and gate its CE marking — the Annex I essential requirements, technical documentation and Declaration of Conformity. One organisational assessment sits above many product assessments. Neither half alone demonstrates compliance: strong governance does not stop a non-conformant product reaching the market, and one conformant product does not prove the organisation can sustain the programme across its range. CyberAssure covers both.

CRA assessment objectives: one organisational assessment sitting above many product assessments The organisational readiness assessment asks whether the business is set up to comply. Beneath it, each product assessment asks whether that individual product can reach the EU market. Together they cover both CRA duties. TOOL 1 · ORGANISATIONAL READINESS One assessment · the whole business Objective: “Is the business set up to comply?” …and every product PRODUCT ASSESSMENT Product A Can this product reach the EU market? CE-ready check PRODUCT ASSESSMENT Product B Can this product reach the EU market? CE-ready check PRODUCT ASSESSMENT Product C Can this product reach the EU market? CE-ready check PRODUCT ASSESSMENT Product D Can this product reach the EU market? CE-ready check + more The organisational assessment shows the business has the system in place; each product assessment shows that product meets the bar. You need both.
One organisational assessment sits above many product assessments — different objectives, one compliance picture.

Two assessments. One platform.

Most organisations start with organisational readiness to stand up credible governance and a defensible baseline, then layer the product-level work on top.

Tool 1 · Start here

CRA Organisational Readiness Assessment

Process-level duties that apply once to the organisation — governance, risk management, vulnerability handling, incident reporting, supply-chain due diligence and economic-operator obligations. 100 questions across 12 CRA domains, role-adaptive for manufacturers, importers, distributors, authorised representatives and open-source software stewards. Produces a readiness score, a CRA-referenced gap register and a board-ready remediation roadmap.

Explore Organisational Readiness
Tool 2 · Per product

CRA Product Requirements Review

Product-level duties that apply to every product and gate CE marking — Annex I/II essential requirements, technical documentation and conformity. 136 questions across 9 domains, with a classification worksheet, essential-requirement scoring that highlights areas requiring attention before conformity assessment, multi-product portfolio reporting and an Annex V preparation worksheet. Run one product or manage the whole portfolio.

Explore Product Compliance

Organisational vs Product — at a glance

The two assessments answer different questions, cover different scope, and rest on different parts of the regulation.

Organisational Readiness Product Compliance
Unit assessed The organisation — one assessment Each product — a portfolio of assessments
Core question Is the business set up to comply? Can this product reach the EU market?
Scope Governance, processes & QMS duties Annex I/II essential requirements, technical docs
Headline outcome Readiness % and a gap register Per-product CE-readiness & conformity gaps
Scale 100 questions · 12 domains 136 questions · 9 domains, per product
Main CRA basis Articles 13, 14, 18–21, 24 Annex I/II, Annex VII, Articles 24–28

Both share the same foundations — per-question evidence, an independent reviewer workflow, evidence-validated scoring, a full audit log, optional AI on your own Anthropic key, and 100% local execution with nothing uploaded to CyberAssure.

A shared foundation

Whichever you start with, both assessments are built on the same principles.

Evidence-Validated & Independently Reviewed

Every answer pairs a self-assessment with an independent reviewer conclusion and a None/Weak/Partial/Strong evidence-confidence rating — turning self-assessment into a defensible position a notified body can scrutinise.

Mapped to the CRA, Citation by Citation

Each question is mapped to the CRA Article or Annex provision it is drawn from, and the full mapping is published in the Coverage Map. Every gap arrives referenced, so remediation traces straight back to the regulation.

Your Data, On Your Machine

Both tools run locally and work fully offline — nothing is ever uploaded to CyberAssure. Optional AI uses your own Anthropic Claude API key and can be disabled site-wide for regulated environments.

A Living Programme, Not a One-Off Report

Re-run period over period to evidence improvement, track every gap to closure in an Action Register, and keep a full audit log — owned in-house, not rented from a consultant.

Pricing

The organisational assessment is licensed per entity; the product assessment per product — both per year, with portfolio pricing for multiple products. No per-seat fees, no usage metering, and nothing hosted off your device. Talk to us about combined suite pricing for the full programme.

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Common questions

Do we need both assessments?

The CRA imposes two distinct duties. Some apply once, to the organisation — governance, vulnerability handling, incident reporting. Others apply to every product and gate its CE marking — the Annex I essential requirements and Declaration of Conformity. Neither half alone demonstrates compliance, so most manufacturers need both.

Which should we start with?

Most organisations begin with the organisational readiness assessment to stand up credible governance and a defensible baseline, then layer the product-level assessments on top, one product at a time.

If we enable AI, what data is sent — and to whom?

AI is off by default in both tools. When enabled, requests go directly from your browser to Anthropic using your own API key — never through CyberAssure's servers, and nothing is stored by us. AI can be disabled entirely for regulated environments.

Does our data leave our device?

No. Both assessments run entirely in your browser; your answers and evidence stay on your own device and are never uploaded to CyberAssure.

See the full enterprise FAQ →

Not sure where to start?

Most organisations begin with the organisational assessment to stand up credible governance and a defensible baseline, then layer the product-level work on top. Get in touch and we'll help you scope the right starting point.

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What this is

CyberAssure tools are structured self-assessments. They help you evaluate your own readiness, identify gaps, prioritise remediation and prepare for formal assessment. They are not a certification, conformity assessment, audit or legal advice, and CyberAssure is not a notified body, accredited certifier or auditor.

On coverage

We design our question sets to address the requirements we identify as applicable, and we publish a coverage map showing which provisions each question is drawn from. Because these regimes evolve, and because which requirements apply depends on facts about your own organisation and products, we cannot warrant that a question set addresses every requirement applicable to you. Identifying the full scope of your obligations remains your responsibility.

CyberAssure is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or accredited by ENISA, the European Commission, any notified body, or any standards or regulatory body.

Further Reading

Resource

The EU Cyber Resilience Act: What Manufacturers Need to Do Before December 2027

A plain-language guide to the CRA's enforcement timeline, product classification categories, essential requirements under Annex I, vulnerability reporting obligations, and conformity assessment pathways.

Read the guide