Before publishing your WordPress plugin, conducting comprehensive CRA compliance checks ensures you meet all regulatory requirements and avoid costly violations.
At CRA Compliance Suite, we provide automated compliance checking tools that identify gaps before they become problems. This pre-launch checklist covers the essential compliance checks every WordPress plugin developer must complete.
Verify Your SBOM is Complete and Accurate
Your Software Bill of Materials is the foundation of CRA compliance.
Before publishing, verify that your SBOM captures all components including direct dependencies (libraries you explicitly include), transitive dependencies (libraries that your libraries depend on), bundled vendor code, custom frameworks, and WordPress core dependencies. Use our automated SBOM validator to ensure compliance with CycloneDX or SPDX standards, checking for complete version information, accurate license data, and proper component relationships.
Missing even a single component from your SBOM can result in compliance violations.
Manual verification catches components that automated scanners might miss, particularly custom code, forked open-source projects, or libraries included as static files rather than managed through package managers. Review your SBOM against your actual codebase to ensure nothing is overlooked.
Run Comprehensive Vulnerability Scans
Deploy comprehensive vulnerability scanning using multiple databases for redundant coverage.
Our system scans against WPScan (39,000+ WordPress vulnerabilities), the National Vulnerability Database (NVD), GitHub Security Advisories, OSV (Google’s Open Source Vulnerabilities), and language-specific security feeds. The scan should identify known vulnerabilities in your dependencies with CVSS severity scores, outdated components with available security patches, components that have reached end-of-life, and potential code-level vulnerabilities through static analysis security testing (SAST).
Every Critical and High severity finding must be remediated before publishing.
Medium severity vulnerabilities should be evaluated for risk and patched where possible. Document your risk assessment for any vulnerabilities you choose not to remediate, explaining why the risk is acceptable and what mitigating controls are in place.
Validate Your Security Documentation
The CRA requires comprehensive security documentation for both users and regulatory authorities.
Before publishing, verify your documentation covers authentication and authorization mechanisms, data protection and encryption standards, input validation and output escaping practices, security features and their proper use, known limitations and security considerations, incident response procedures, and update mechanisms and security patch delivery. Use our documentation checker to identify missing sections, verify technical accuracy, and ensure compliance with CRA formatting requirements.
Documentation quality directly impacts compliance audit success.
Clear, comprehensive documentation demonstrates your commitment to security and helps users understand how to use your plugin securely. Incomplete or unclear documentation is one of the fastest ways to fail a compliance audit.
Test Your Secure Update Mechanism
The CRA mandates secure update delivery for all digital products.
Test your update mechanism thoroughly before publishing to verify HTTPS is used for all update communications, digital signatures are properly verified before installation, file integrity is checked using cryptographic hashes, update notifications are clear and actionable, atomic updates complete fully or roll back completely, and automatic rollback functions correctly when updates fail. Our update mechanism validator simulates various update scenarios including network failures, corrupted downloads, and signature mismatches to ensure your implementation handles all edge cases securely.
Update mechanism vulnerabilities can compromise thousands of sites simultaneously.
Verify Regulatory Compliance Requirements
Beyond CRA requirements, ensure your plugin complies with relevant data protection and security regulations.
Check GDPR compliance if your plugin processes personal data (proper consent mechanisms, data minimization, right to erasure), PCI DSS compliance if handling payment card data (secure storage, encrypted transmission, access controls), and HIPAA compliance if dealing with health information (data encryption, audit logging, access restrictions). Our compliance checker identifies regulatory gaps specific to your plugin’s functionality and jurisdiction.
Different regulations have overlapping but distinct requirements.
Conduct Pre-Launch Security Testing
Manual security testing catches issues automated scanners miss.
Test on a staging environment before publishing to your live site, monitoring plugin behavior and ensuring it doesn’t introduce vulnerabilities. Conduct authentication and authorization testing (privilege escalation attempts, session management), input validation testing (SQL injection, XSS, command injection), and API security testing (authentication bypasses, rate limiting, data exposure). Use tools like WPScan, Security Ninja, and manual penetration testing techniques to establish your baseline security posture.
Some security issues only appear under specific conditions or unusual usage patterns.
Generate Your CE Marking and Declaration of Conformity
Before distribution in the EU market, your plugin must display CE marking and include an EU Declaration of Conformity.
Our automated declaration generator creates properly formatted documents containing company details and legal entity information, complete product identification (name, version, unique identifier), applicable EU legislation and CRA articles, harmonized standards used for assessment, conformity assessment procedure followed, and risk category classification with justification. Verify the declaration is accurate and signed by an authorized representative.
Incorrect or incomplete declarations can result in market access denial.
Final Pre-Launch Compliance Review
Run our comprehensive pre-launch compliance checker that validates all requirements in a single scan.
The checker generates a compliance scorecard showing your readiness across all CRA requirements, identifies any blocking issues that must be resolved before publishing, provides prioritized remediation guidance, and creates audit-ready compliance reports. Address all Critical and High priority findings before publishing.
Visit CRA Compliance Suite to run your pre-launch compliance check and ensure your WordPress plugin meets all CRA requirements before publication.