1. Vulnerability Management Traceability
You discover vulnerabilities, assess them, fix them, and verify the fixes. Your team does this work diligently. But can you trace a single CVE from initial discovery through risk assessment to the implemented mitigation to the verification test to the deployed patch? Most companies have these elements scattered across multiple disconnected tools. The CRA requires seamless, bidirectional traceability across this entire chain.
2. SBOM Integration
You probably generate a Software Bill of Materials. It lists your components, perhaps even their versions and licenses. But is your SBOM connected to your risk assessments? Can you instantly show which components have been evaluated, which mitigations address their risks, and which tests verify those mitigations? For most organizations, the SBOM exists in isolation, a compliance artifact disconnected from actual risk management processes.
3. Secure Development Lifecycle Documentation
Your team conducts security reviews, performs threat modeling, and follows secure coding practices. The problem isn't that this work doesn't happen, it's that it isn't systematically documented with bidirectional traceability. The CRA requires every security requirement to be traceable to specific design decisions, to the code that implements them, and to the tests that verify them. Can you demonstrate this traceability for every security requirement in your product?
4. Risk Assessment Linkage
You perform FMEA or TARA. You identify risks and define mitigations. But can you trace each identified risk to its specific mitigation measure, to the verification that the mitigation is effective, and to the documented residual risk? Most companies maintain risk assessments in Excel spreadsheets with no structured connection to the engineering artifacts that address those risks.
5. Patch Management Documentation
You release patches. Your release notes document what changed. But can you trace each patch to the specific CVE or vulnerability it addresses, to the risk assessment that determined its priority, to the tests that verified the fix, and to the systems where it was deployed? Structured, queryable patch traceability is rare even in companies with mature security processes.
6. Third-Party Component Governance
You evaluate suppliers. You conduct audits. You make decisions about which components to use. But are these evaluations systematically linked to the actual components in your products? Can you instantly show which components have been evaluated, who approved them, what risks were identified, and how those components are being monitored for vulnerabilities? Most organizations have supplier audits stored as PDFs with no connection to component usage.
7. Incident Response Documentation
When security incidents occur, your team responds, investigates root causes, implements fixes, and verifies solutions. But is there structured traceability from the incident report to the timeline of response actions to the root cause analysis to the implemented fix to the verification results? The CRA requires this complete chain to be documented and queryable.
