Does the Cyber Resilience Act Apply to APIs?
Learn if the EU CRA applies to APIs, what the core compliance requirements are, and how to start preparing your engineering teams automatically.
Core Definition
Yes. The EU Cyber Resilience Act applies directly to APIs as they fall under the definition of "products with digital elements." A public API is a product with digital elements in its own right — its authentication, rate-limiting, and versioning choices are all CRA-relevant design decisions. This means your software must meet mandatory cybersecurity requirements to be distributed in the EU market.
Key Compliance Steps for APIs
- Determine Classification: Check if your APIs falls under the default category or Class I/Class II, which dictate stricter conformity assessment paths.
- Perform Risk Assessment: Map out the attack surface for your software and document the mitigations for the "secure by design" requirement.
- Implement Vulnerability Reporting: Provide a 24-hour reporting mechanism to ENISA for actively exploited vulnerabilities.
- Generate an SBOM: Ensure all dependencies used in your APIs are documented in a machine-readable Software Bill of Materials.
- Avoid the Common Pitfall: API security gets reduced to 'we use API keys' without addressing the access-control granularity and logging the CRA expects.
How This Plays Out in Practice
A public API is a product with digital elements in its own right — its authentication, rate-limiting, and versioning choices are all CRA-relevant design decisions.
What to Watch For
API security gets reduced to 'we use API keys' without addressing the access-control granularity and logging the CRA expects.
Assess Your CRA Readiness
Evaluate your product's Cyber Resilience Act readiness using our interactive tool. Find exactly which of the 22 security requirements apply directly to APIs.