Cyber Resilience Act, Preamble 61 to 70 (Final Text)
(61) When products with digital elements reach the end of their support periods, in order to ensure that vulnerabilities can be handled after the end of the support period, manufacturers should consider releasing the source code of such products with digital elements either to other undertakings which commit to extending the provision of vulnerability handling services or to the public. Where manufacturers release the source code to other undertakings, they should be able to protect the ownership of the product with digital elements and prevent the dissemination of the source code to the public, for example through contractual arrangements.
(62) In order to ensure that manufacturers across the Union determine similar support periods for comparable products with digital elements, ADCO should publish statistics on the average support periods determined by manufacturers for categories of products with digital elements and issue guidance indicating appropriate support periods for such categories.
In addition, with a view to ensuring a harmonised approach across the internal market, the Commission should be able to adopt delegated acts to specify minimum support periods for specific product categories where the data provided by market surveillance authorities suggests that the support periods determined by manufacturers are either systematically not in line with the criteria for determining the support periods as laid down in this Regulation or that manufacturers in different Member States unjustifiably determine different support periods.
(63) Manufacturers should set up a single point of contact that enables users to communicate easily with them, including for the purpose of reporting on and receiving information about the vulnerabilities of the product with digital element. They should make the single point of contact easily accessible for users and clearly indicate its availability, keeping this information up to date. Where manufacturers choose to offer automated tools, e.g. chat boxes, they should also offer a phone number or other digital means of contact, such as an email address or a contact form. The single point of contact should not rely exclusively on automated tools.
(64) Manufacturers should make their products with digital elements available on the market with a secure by default configuration and provide security updates to users free of charge. Manufacturers should only be able to deviate from the essential cybersecurity requirements in relation to tailor-made products that are fitted to a particular purpose for a particular business user and where both the manufacturer and the user have explicitly agreed to a different set of contractual terms.
(65) Manufacturers should notify simultaneously via the single reporting platform both the computer security incident response team (CSIRT) designated as coordinator as well as ENISA of actively exploited vulnerabilities contained in products with digital elements, as well as severe incidents having an impact on the security of those products. The notifications should be submitted using the electronic notification end-point of a CSIRT designated as coordinator and should be simultaneously accessible to ENISA.
(66) Manufacturers should notify actively exploited vulnerabilities to ensure that the CSIRTs designated as coordinators, and ENISA, have an adequate overview of such vulnerabilities and are provided with the information necessary to fulfil their tasks as set out in Directive (EU) 2022/2555 and raise the overall level of cybersecurity of essential and important entities as referred to in Article 3 of that Directive, as well as to ensure the effective functioning of market surveillance authorities. As most products with digital elements are marketed across the entire internal market, any exploited vulnerability in a product with digital elements should be considered to be a threat to the functioning of the internal market.
ENISA should, in agreement with the manufacturer, disclose fixed vulnerabilities to the European vulnerability database established pursuant to Article 12(2) of Directive (EU) 2022/2555. The European vulnerability database will assist manufacturers in detecting known exploitable vulnerabilities in their products, in order to ensure that secure products are made available on the market.
(67) Manufacturers should also notify any severe incident having an impact on the security of the product with digital elements to the CSIRT designated as coordinator and ENISA. In order to ensure that users can react quickly to severe incidents having an impact on the security of their products with digital elements, manufacturers should also inform their users about any such incident and, where applicable, about any corrective measures that the users can deploy to mitigate the impact of the incident, for example by publishing relevant information on their websites or, where the manufacturer is able to contact the users and where justified by the cybersecurity risks, by reaching out to the users directly.
(68) Actively exploited vulnerabilities concern instances where a manufacturer establishes that a security breach affecting its users or any other natural or legal persons has resulted from a malicious actor making use of a flaw in one of the products with digital elements made available on the market by the manufacturer. Examples of such vulnerabilities could be weaknesses in a product’s identification and authentication functions.
Vulnerabilities that are discovered with no malicious intent for purposes of good faith testing, investigation, correction or disclosure to promote the security or safety of the system owner and its users should not be subject to mandatory notification.
Severe incidents having an impact on the security of the product with digital elements, on the other hand, refer to situations where a cybersecurity incident affects the development, production or maintenance processes of the manufacturer in such a way that it could result in an increased cybersecurity risk for users or other persons. Such a severe incident could include a situation where an attacker has successfully introduced malicious code into the release channel via which the manufacturer releases security updates to users.
(69) To ensure that notifications can be disseminated quickly to all relevant CSIRTs designated as coordinators and to enable manufacturers to submit a single notification at each stage of the notification process, a single reporting platform with national electronic notification end-points should be established by ENISA. The day-to-day operations of the single reporting platform should be managed and maintained by ENISA.
The CSIRTs designated as coordinators should inform their respective market surveillance authorities about notified vulnerabilities or incidents. The single reporting platform should be designed in such a way that it ensures the confidentiality of notifications, in particular as regards vulnerabilities for which a security update is not yet available.
In addition, ENISA should put in place procedures to handle information in a secure and confidential manner. On the basis of the information it gathers, ENISA should prepare a biennial technical report on emerging trends regarding cybersecurity risks in products with digital elements and submit it to the Cooperation Group established pursuant to Article 14 of Directive (EU) 2022/2555.
(70) In exceptional circumstances and in particular upon request by the manufacturer, the CSIRT designated as coordinator initially receiving a notification should be able to decide to delay its dissemination to the other relevant CSIRTs designated as coordinators via the single reporting platform where this can be justified on cybersecurity-related grounds and for a period of time that is strictly necessary.
The CSIRT designated as coordinator should immediately inform ENISA about the decision to delay and on which grounds, as well as when it intends to disseminate further. The Commission should develop, through a delegated act, specifications on the terms and conditions for when cybersecurity-related grounds could be applied and should cooperate with the CSIRTs network established pursuant to Article 15 of Directive (EU) 2022/2555, and ENISA in preparing the draft delegated act. Examples of cybersecurity-related grounds include an ongoing coordinated vulnerability disclosure procedure or situations in which a manufacturer is expected to provide a mitigating measure shortly and the cybersecurity risks of an immediate dissemination via the single reporting platform outweigh its benefits.
If requested by the CSIRT designated as coordinator, ENISA should be able to support that CSIRT on the application of cybersecurity-related grounds in relation to delaying the dissemination of the notification based on the information ENISA has received from that CSIRT on the decision to withhold a notification on those cybersecurity-related grounds. Furthermore, in particularly exceptional circumstances, ENISA should not receive all the details of a notification of an actively exploited vulnerability in a simultaneous manner.
This would be the case when the manufacturer marks in its notification that the notified vulnerability has been actively exploited by a malicious actor and that, according to the information available, it has been exploited in no other Member State than the one of the CSIRT designated as coordinator to which the manufacturer has notified the vulnerability, when any immediate further dissemination of the notified vulnerability would likely result in the supply of information the disclosure of which would be contrary to the essential interests of that Member State, or when the notified vulnerability poses an imminent high cybersecurity risk stemming from the further dissemination.
In such cases, ENISA will only receive simultaneous access to the information that a notification was made by the manufacturer, general information about the product with digital elements concerned, the information about the general nature of the exploit and information about the fact that those security grounds were raised by the manufacturer and that the full content of the notification is therefore withheld.
The full notification should then be made available to ENISA and other relevant CSIRTs designated as coordinators when the CSIRT designated as coordinator initially receiving the notification finds that those security grounds, reflecting particularly exceptional circumstances as established in this Regulation, cease to exist. Where, based on the information available, ENISA considers that there is a systemic risk affecting the security of the internal market, ENISA should recommend to the recipient CSIRT to disseminate the full notification to the other CSIRTs designated as coordinators and to ENISA itself.
Cyber Resilience Act Final Text
You may also visit: