Standards Development

Scope

This standards shall provide specifications applicable to vulnerability handling processes, covering all relevant product categories, to be put in place by manufacturers of the products with digital elements. Those processes shall at least allow to:

(a) identify and document vulnerabilities and components contained in the product, including by drawing up a software bill of materials in a commonly used and machinereadable format covering at the very least the top-level dependencies of the product;

(b) in relation to the risks posed to the products with digital elements, address and remediate vulnerabilities without delay, including by providing security updates; where technically feasible, new security updates shall be provided separately from functionality updates;

(c) apply effective and regular tests and reviews of the security of the product with digital elements;

(d) once a security update has been made available, share and publicly disclose information about fixed vulnerabilities, including a description of the vulnerabilities, information allowing users to identify the product with digital elements affected, the impacts of the vulnerabilities, their severity and clear and accessible information helping users to remediate the vulnerabilities; in duly justified cases, where manufacturers consider the security risks of publication to outweigh the security benefits, they may delay making public information regarding a fixed vulnerability until after users have been given the possibility to apply the relevant patch;

(e) put in place and enforce a policy on coordinated vulnerability disclosure;

(f) take measures to facilitate the sharing of information about potential vulnerabilities in
their product with digital elements as well as in third party components contained in
that product, including by providing a standardised contact address for the reporting of the
vulnerabilities discovered in the product with digital elements;
(g) provide for mechanisms to securely distribute updates for products with digital
elements to ensure that vulnerabilities are fixed or mitigated in a timely manner, and,
where applicable for security updates, in an automatic manner;
(h) ensure that, where security updates are available to address identified security issues,
they are disseminated without delay and, unless otherwise agreed between
manufacturer and business user in relation to a tailor-made product with digital
elements, free of charge, accompanied by advisory messages providing users with the
relevant information, including on potential action to be taken.

Purpose

Develop a harmonized horizontal standard on vulnerability handling for products with digital elements. This standard covers the requested deliverable 15 as stated in Annex I of the draft standardisation request published by the European Commission on September 23rd 2024.

This standard shall be drafted in such a way that would ensure that the harmonised standards may provide presumption of conformity regarding the implementation of appropriate procedures that can support an adequate vulnerability handling.