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Esports and Competitive Gaming: CRA Cybersecurity Aspects

Esports and competitive gaming rely heavily on fairness, integrity, and the reliable performance of game software. The EU Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), while not specifically targeting esports, introduces cybersecurity requirements that can significantly benefit the competitive scene.

Game Integrity is Key​

The CRA's essential cybersecurity requirements aim to make "products with digital elements" (your game) more secure (Annex I). For esports, this translates to:

  • Protection Against Cheating (Integrity of Data/Code): Requirements for protecting the integrity of stored, transmitted, or processed data, commands, programs, and configuration against unauthorized manipulation (Annex I, Part I, Point 2f) are fundamental. This helps in ensuring that game clients and server interactions cannot be easily tampered with to gain an unfair advantage. Secure by design principles help prevent common client-side hacks.
  • Availability of Functions: Ensuring the availability of essential game functions, including resilience against denial-of-service attacks (Annex I, Part I, Point 2h), is crucial for uninterrupted tournament play.
  • Limiting Attack Surfaces: Designing games to limit attack surfaces (Annex I, Part I, Point 2j) reduces opportunities for exploits that could disrupt matches or compromise player systems.
  • Exploitation Mitigation: Building in mechanisms to reduce the impact of an incident (Annex I, Part I, Point 2k) can help manage situations if a vulnerability is exploited during a competition.

Vulnerability Management in Competitive Environments​

The CRA mandates robust vulnerability handling processes (Annex I, Part II).

  • Prompt Patching: Addressing and remediating vulnerabilities without delay (Point 2) is critical. A known, unpatched vulnerability could be exploited to disrupt a major tournament or compromise sensitive player data.
  • Secure Update Distribution: Ensuring updates are distributed securely (Point 7) prevents malicious actors from injecting compromised patches.
  • Coordinated Disclosure: A clear policy for coordinated vulnerability disclosure (Point 5) allows security researchers to report issues responsibly, potentially before they impact competitive events.

Online Tournament Infrastructure​

If you, the game developer, also operate the servers or platforms for competitive events, those "remote data processing solutions" must also adhere to CRA security standards if they are integral to your game's function (Article 3,) Point 2).

Key Takeway​

While the CRA doesn't legislate fair play directly, its emphasis on product security—protecting data and code integrity, ensuring availability, and managing vulnerabilities—directly supports the needs of the esports and competitive gaming scene by making games harder to cheat in and more reliable for high-stakes play.