The Cyber Resilience Act and DORA: Driving Continuous Cybersecurity

The EU Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) and the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) are shaping the regulatory landscape for cybersecurity in Europe and across the globe. While DORA focuses on the financial sector and ICT providers, the upcoming CRA will extend requirements to all digital products and services, emphasizing secure-by-design practices and software resilience.

This marks a shift from periodic compliance checks to continuous operational resilience, where organizations must demonstrate that security and risk management are ongoing, adaptive processes.

Platforms like the SafeBreach exposure validation platform support this shift by enabling continuous validation of controls, helping organizations stay ahead of evolving threats and future regulatory requirements. Rather than treating resilience as a one-time exercise, SafeBreach ensures it remains a living, evolving capability aligned with both DORA and the emerging CRA.

In this post, you’ll learn how the CRA and DORA are shifting cybersecurity from periodic compliance to continuous resilience, what key obligations and milestones exist, and how exposure validation supports ongoing compliance, risk management, and audit readiness—turning regulatory requirements into a strategic advantage.

The EU Cyber Resilience Act at a Glance

What is the CRA?

The EU Cyber Resilience Act is a forthcoming regulation that establishes baseline cybersecurity requirements for digital products and services sold or used within the EU. Its goal is to ensure that software and connected devices are secure by design, resilient to cyberattacks, and maintainable throughout their lifecycle.

Who is affected?

The CRA applies broadly across the digital ecosystem, including manufacturers of hardware and software, importers, software providers, and organizations operating critical infrastructure. Essentially, any entity that develops, sells, or deploys digital products or services within the EU will need to comply with the new standards.

How CRA differs from DORA—and where they overlap

While DORA specifically targets financial institutions and focuses on operational resilience in ICT systems, the CRA casts a wider net across all digital products and services. Both regulations share a common emphasis on continuous security, risk management, and resilience, but the CRA adds requirements around secure-by-design development practices, software lifecycle security, and product-level accountability. Together, they reflect a broader EU shift toward proactive, ongoing cybersecurity rather than periodic compliance checks.

Key Milestones in the Cyber Resilience Act Timeline

CRA entered into force on December 10, 2024, with its main obligations set to apply from December 11, 2027. From that date forward, any “products with digital elements”—including hardware, software, and supporting services—that do not meet the CRA’s requirements cannot be sold in the EU. These deadlines emphasize the need for organizations to proactively embed security into their products and processes well ahead of enforcement.

Moving Beyond Periodic Audits: Embracing Continuous Cyber Resilience

Traditional compliance approaches—such as annual audits or point-in-time testing—are no longer sufficient under the CRA. The regulation emphasizes continuous oversight, proactive defense, and adaptive risk management, requiring organizations to constantly monitor, test, and improve the security of their digital products.

Continual and Intelligence-Driven Security Control Validation for example, allows teams to simulate real-world attack scenarios, uncover hidden vulnerabilities, and remediate issues before they escalate. This shift ensures that resilience is ongoing and measurable, rather than a checkbox exercise completed once a year. By embracing continuous validation, organizations can meet the CRA’s expectations while strengthening their overall cybersecurity posture and readiness for evolving threats.

How SafeBreach Supports Compliance with CRA and DORA

The SafeBreach exposure validation platform helps organizations bridge the gap between regulatory requirements and practical cybersecurity by providing continuous validation and actionable insights. The platform supports both CRA and DORA compliance through two core capabilities:

Validate – Delivers ongoing breach simulations and continuous testing of security controls to ensure defenses remain effective against evolving threats.

Propagate – Identifies potential blast radius and quantifies business risk, helping organizations understand the real-world impact of security gaps.

Key Benefits of SafeBreach:

Real-world threat emulation: Simulate attacks based on the latest TTPs to uncover vulnerabilities before attackers do.

Prioritized remediation based on impact: Focus resources on the most critical risks that could affect business operations.

Audit-ready reporting: Generate structured evidence of compliance and resilience to satisfy regulatory requirements under both CRA and DORA.

Mapping CRA and DORA Requirements to Exposure Validation

Exposure validation plays a critical role in helping organizations align with both CRA and DORA requirements by translating regulatory obligations into actionable security practices.

• Aligning with CRA obligations: Continuous testing supports vulnerability handling, post-market monitoring, and ongoing risk assessment for digital products and services, ensuring compliance with secure-by-design and resilience principles.
• Aligning with DORA pillars: The platform enables coverage of key operational resilience areas, including ICT risk management, continuous control testing, incident response validation, and third-party risk assessment. This directly supports the five pillars of DORA and helps demonstrate compliance during audits.
• Supporting product security and operational resilience: By linking exposure validation to both CRA and DORA requirements, organizations can proactively reduce risk, strengthen defenses, and ensure that resilience is both measurable and actionable—spanning individual products and broader organizational operations.

Turning Compliance into a Strategic Advantage

Exposure validation platforms serve as a strategic enabler of continuous cyber resilience, allowing organizations to transform regulatory obligations into actionable security practices.

Building trust through transparency and resilience:
By continuously validating security controls and openly demonstrating measurable outcomes, organizations strengthen trust with regulators, customers, and stakeholders. Transparency in resilience efforts signals maturity and reinforces credibility in the market.

Enabling operational continuity:
Resilience is more than recovery—it is the ability to sustain operations in the face of disruption. Through continuous testing, incident response validation, and proactive identification of weaknesses, organizations ensure that critical services remain available even as threats evolve.

Using regulatory pressure as a catalyst for long-term maturity:
Rather than viewing CRA and DORA as compliance burdens, forward-thinking organizations use them as opportunities to mature. Regulatory requirements become the framework for embedding secure-by-design practices, threat-led testing, and resilience-driven culture into everyday operations.

Turning compliance into competitive advantage:
When approached strategically, compliance becomes more than a regulatory requirement—it drives continuous improvement and positions organizations ahead of peers. By embracing resilience as part of compliance, organizations not only ensure readiness but also differentiate themselves as trusted, future-ready partners, turning obligations into a true competitive edge.

Discover how the SafeBreach Exposure Validation platform helps organizations align with DORA and the CRA, turning compliance into resilience. Connect with a SafeBreach cybersecurity expert to learn more.