In recent months, major international airports such as London Heathrow and Newark Liberty International have been in the news for significant disruptions to operations. In the case of Heathrow, a transformer fire led to a shutdown. And with Newark, there was a series of cascading infrastructure issues. These events underscore a critical reality: in the fast-paced, high-stakes world of commercial aviation, even a brief outage can ripple across continents, stranding thousands of passengers and crippling critical services.
For airport authorities and operators, the challenge is clear: prepare for the unpredictable and demonstrate regulatory compliance. That’s where technology, like the Fusion Framework System, comes in.
Building Resilience Before Crisis Strikes – While Meeting CRA Requirements
The number of regulations that have been enacted over the past few years place a significant emphasis on resilience. The proposed EU Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) specifically introduces horizontal cybersecurity obligations for all “products with digital elements” placed on the EU market – including critical aviation systems. The CRA mandates:
- Cybersecurity risk assessments
- Security-by-design principles
- Ongoing vulnerability management
- Post-market monitoring
- Incident and exploit reporting
Enterprise resilience software like Fusion’s enables airport operators to fulfill these requirements through:
- Dynamic risk register configuration – allowing stakeholders to continuously identify, assess, and prioritize cybersecurity risks linked to digital infrastructure
- Customizable control and compliance mapping – aligning airport technology systems with CRA requirements, aviation regulations, and other standards (e.g., NIS2, ISO 27001)
- Dependency mapping tools – helping organizations visualize interconnections between power, security, traffic control, baggage systems, and more, enabling comprehensive risk planning
- Scenario testing and simulation – enabling teams to validate contingency plans for outages, cyber incidents, or cascading infrastructure failures
Supporting the CRA’s Incident Response Mandates and Responding in Real Time
Under the CRA, organizations must be able to detect, respond to, and report security incidents rapidly. Fusion empowers real-time responsiveness through:
- Integrated dashboards for situational awareness across departments and third-party vendors
- Automated incident workflows that align with predefined CRA response protocols – ensuring proper escalation, documentation, and mitigation actions
- Mobile and cloud-enabled access so airport response teams can coordinate on the ground or remotely in real time
These features support the CRA’s goals for minimizing time-to-response (TTR) and maintaining traceability during incidents
Recovering Stronger and Proving CRA Compliance and Continuous Improvement
CRA compliance doesn’t end when an incident does. It includes post-incident analysis, documentation, and improvement. Fusion supports this by enabling:
- After-action reviews with audit-quality logs, impact assessments, and remediation tracking.
- Root cause analysis and lessons learned to update business continuity and cybersecurity strategies.
- Centralized reporting dashboards to demonstrate regulatory compliance and prepare for audits from national authorities.
Our comprehensive documentation tools allow clients to show conformity with the CRA’s essential requirements, including evidence of secure design, lifecycle monitoring, and corrective actions.
Why Being Resilient Matters
Outages like Heathrow’s transformer fire or Newark’s cascading infrastructure failures don’t just disrupt operations – they jeopardize safety, damage reputations, and trigger regulatory scrutiny. As the CRA raises the bar for cybersecurity in all digital systems, airport authorities need more than a reaction plan – they need a compliance-ready resilience platform.
By working with a company like ours, airports gain a proactive partner to:
- Manage risk holistically
- Streamline compliance with CRA obligations
- Ensure preparedness across digital and physical infrastructure
We’re here to help. Request to speak with a Fusion expert today to see how our solutions empower you to navigate the unexpected and meet evolving regulatory requirements.
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