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Home » Knowledge center » The 7 Foundational Requirements as a Technical Baseline for EU CRA

The 7 Foundational Requirements as a Technical Baseline for EU CRA

Technical illustration of the 7 Foundational Requirements for IEC 62443 and EU CRA compliance in Logic Technology brand colors.

Enabling reliable, observable and remotely manageable edge systems

The IEC 62443 standard originates from the industrial automation and control systems (IACS) domain, where long product lifecycles, constrained embedded platforms and safety-critical operation are the norm. It was not written with legislation in mind, but engineering. That is precisely why it has become the most relevant technical reference for the implementation of the EU Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) in industrial embedded systems.

The CRA defines what manufacturers are legally required to achieve for products with digital elements, but it deliberately avoids prescribing how those requirements must be implemented. This gap between legal obligation and technical execution is where harmonised standards come into play. The EN IEC 62443 series is currently being harmonised under the CRA, meaning that compliance with this standard provides a presumption of conformity with the regulation. In practice, this makes IEC 62443 the most concrete engineering-level interpretation of CRA requirements for industrial products.

Rather than treating the CRA as a separate compliance exercise, IEC 62443 allows teams to anchor CRA readiness directly in system architecture, software design, and development workflows.

Why the 7 Foundational Requirements Matter

Within IEC 62443, the seven Foundational Requirements (FRs) define the core security properties that an embedded system must uphold. They are not features, controls, or checklists, but categories of technical responsibility that shape how a system is designed and validated:

  • Identification and authentication of users, devices, and services
  • Control over authorised actions
  • Protection of system integrity
  • Confidentiality of data at rest and in transit
  • Controlled and segmented data flows
  • Detection and handling of security-relevant events
  • Availability of system resources under adverse conditions

Taken together, these requirements form a coherent model for “security by design”, exactly the principle enforced by the CRA. Importantly, they also map directly to CRA obligations such as vulnerability prevention, impact limitation, incident handling, and lifecycle risk management, a relationship that is made explicit in documents like Cyber Resilience Act Requirements – Standards Mapping.

From Requirements to Implementation

For embedded teams, the challenge is not understanding these requirements conceptually, but translating them into verifiable technical measures within constrained systems and complex supply chains. This is where tooling becomes relevant, not as a compliance shortcut, but as a means to maintain continuous control over these foundational properties throughout development and operation.

Technologies from developers such as Exein operate precisely at this intersection. By analysing firmware and enforcing runtime protections, Exein supports multiple Foundational Requirements simultaneously, particularly system integrity, restricted data flow, timely response to events, and resource availability. In a CRA context, this contributes to demonstrable risk reduction and supports the requirement to address vulnerabilities both before and after products are placed on the market.

Seen this way, the seven Foundational Requirements are not an abstract IEC construct, nor is the CRA a purely legal burden. Together, they define a single technical narrative: embedded systems must be designed, built, and maintained with explicit control over security-relevant behaviour and that control must be provable.

Translating theory into proof

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Gevorg Melikdjanjan

Gevorg Melikdjanjan

Security | Reliability | Data Solutions

Looking to secure your CRA roadmap?

The intersection of legal requirements and technical execution is complex. I help teams translate CRA and IEC 62443 obligations into verifiable security measures that fit their specific development lifecycle. Let's discuss how to make your compliance process both provable and efficient.

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