Our CRA Preparation Journey through CERTIFAI

Preparing for the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) can be particularly challenging for SMEs taking their first steps towards formal cybersecurity assessment. Regulatory requirements need to be understood, translated into product-specific actions and prioritised within limited time and resources.

Over the past three years, the EU-funded CERTIFAI project has brought together research organisations, certification bodies and industry partners around a shared goal: making cybersecurity assessment and certification more continuous, efficient and accessible. Together, the partners developed and tested AI-supported methods and tools designed to help organisations navigate an evolving cybersecurity and regulatory landscape, including preparation for the CRA.

Catalink participated as an SME use-case provider, applying selected CERTIFAI methodologies and tools to PATROLIoT, our IoT solution for wildfire monitoring and the early detection of fire and smoke. We contributed to their testing and evaluation from the perspective of an organisation with limited prior cybersecurity certification experience, providing feedback on their clarity, usability and practical applicability.

This process helped us better understand our current position, identify relevant gaps and priorities, and begin defining practical areas for improvement. It was an important step in building our cybersecurity readiness, rather than a certification exercise or a declaration of full CRA compliance.

As CERTIFAI draws to a close, we wanted to share not only the results of this work but also the learning process behind them. In our new video, we discuss:

• how we began translating CRA requirements into practical actions for PATROLIoT;
• the main challenges we faced as an SME with limited cybersecurity certification experience;
• how CERTIFAI’s methodologies and tools supported our assessment and decision-making;
• the priorities and next steps that emerged from the process; and
• the lessons we learned that may be useful to other organisations beginning their own CRA preparation journey.

We hope our experience can offer useful direction to SMEs and other organisations facing similar challenges and help make their first steps towards CRA readiness more structured and manageable.

Watch the video on YouTube to learn more about our experience, the challenges we encountered and the practical lessons we gained along the way.

CertifAI has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 101120606.

Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.