The EU Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) introduces a sweeping set of requirements for software-defined product manufacturers, including the obligation to identify, report, and remediate vulnerabilities across the full product lifecycle. While the regulatory intent is clear, the operational reality is anything but simple.
For most organizations, the biggest challenge is not what CRA asks for but where those vulnerabilities live. In a single product portfolio, manufacturers often have software that spans 20-year-old binaries, in-development source code, and off-the-shelf third-party components. Each of these asset types presents unique visibility challenges, and each requires a different approach to security analysis.
No single scanning method is sufficient on its own. To build a complete, CRA-ready picture of product risk, manufacturers must adopt a multi-modal scanning strategy, one that combines binary analysis, source code scanning, and SBOM ingestion into a unified risk management workflow.
The Problem: One Portfolio, Many Code States
Manufacturers of connected products often operate in a fragmented landscape. Some products are actively being developed with full access to source code. Others are legacy devices that are already deployed in the field, with only compiled firmware available. Still others are built using third-party components where the manufacturer has neither source code nor binaries, just a supplier-provided SBOM, if they’re lucky.
Despite these differences, the CRA treats them the same. Every product in the portfolio must be monitored for vulnerabilities. Every software component must be accounted for. And every risk must be addressed, regardless of its origin.
This creates a significant visibility gap. If your scanning tools only work on source code, you miss the vulnerabilities hiding in legacy binaries. If you rely solely on SBOMs, you risk trusting incomplete or inaccurate component data. To meet CRA obligations, organizations need complete, context-rich insight across all product types.
The Case for Multi-Modal Scanning
A multi-modal scanning approach bridges the gaps between different software states and ensures consistent risk coverage across the entire product lifecycle.
Source code scanning allows teams to identify vulnerabilities early in the development process, enforce secure coding practices, and generate accurate SBOMs during build time.
Binary analysis enables security teams to extract and analyze the actual compiled firmware or software that ships in a device, revealing embedded components, misconfigurations, and hidden risks that may not appear in source code.
SBOM ingestion and enrichment makes it possible to incorporate third-party SBOMs into your security workflows, validate their contents, and monitor for newly discovered vulnerabilities affecting those components.
Each modality plays a critical role. Together, they provide the comprehensive coverage necessary to identify risks that would otherwise go undetected.
Applying Multi-Modal Scanning in Practice
Consider a manufacturer building a connected heavy machinery platform for the European market. The product includes:
- Legacy software deployed in the field for years, with no active development
- A current-generation firmware build with some internally maintained code
- Third-party control modules with proprietary code and limited visibility
- New components under active development with full access to source code
In this scenario, source code scanning alone would miss the majority of the risk. The legacy firmware would remain opaque, the third-party components would be treated as black boxes, and only a portion of the portfolio would receive meaningful analysis.
By contrast, a multi-modal approach would allow the manufacturer to:
- Perform binary analysis on legacy firmware to extract SBOMs and vulnerabilities
- Ingest and enrich third-party SBOMs to track vulnerabilities and validate supplier claims
- Scan current and future source code for insecure coding patterns and component risks
- Create a unified view of vulnerabilities across all code sources, with tailored remediation strategies
This approach not only improves security posture—it also provides the evidence and consistency required for CRA reporting, VEX documentation, and audit readiness.
How Finite State Enables Unified Risk Visibility
Finite State’s platform is built to support multi-modal scanning at scale. Whether you're working with source code, binaries, or third-party SBOMs, the platform provides deep analysis, risk correlation, and actionable intelligence mapped directly to the CRA’s expectations.
With Finite State, manufacturers can:
- Automatically analyze binaries to identify components and vulnerabilities
- Scan source code using secure composition analysis (SCA) for known risks and license issues
- Ingest and validate SBOMs from suppliers, enriching them with threat intelligence and exploitability data
- Correlate findings across modalities into a centralized risk dashboard for compliance and remediation workflows
The result is a full-spectrum view of software risk, delivered with the clarity, depth, and context needed for CRA compliance.
Final Thought: Visibility Is Non-Negotiable
As CRA deadlines approach, the manufacturers best positioned to comply won’t be those with the flashiest tools or the largest budgets. They’ll be the ones with complete, continuous visibility across their software supply chains regardless of where their code came from, how it was built, or how old it is.
Multi-modal scanning isn’t a luxury. It’s a necessity. And with the right platform in place, it becomes a powerful enabler, not just for compliance, but for product security maturity at scale.
Call to Action
Need help implementing a multi-modal scanning strategy across your portfolio? Contact Finite State to learn how our platform helps manufacturers achieve CRA compliance through unified risk analysis.
