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Learn what makes a Security Risk Analysis "defensible" and discover the key evidence you need to collect to ensure your organization is audit-ready.

by Morgan Hague

For organizations navigating a complex landscape of regulatory compliance and cybersecurity threats, conducting a Security Risk Assessment (SRA) can often feel like standard procedure. A critical differentiator between a routine compliance audit and a costly enforcement action is whether the SRA is defensible.

An SRA must be able to withstand rigorous scrutiny from auditors, regulators, and other third parties. A defensible SRA demonstrates true due diligence, not just check the box compliance.

In this blog we’ll explore the essential components of a defensible SRA, the evidence required to support it, and a structured approach to achieving a state of continuous, audit-ready security. We will detail how to move beyond a simple checklist approach to build a strategic, evidence-based risk management program.

What Makes an SRA “Defensible”?

A defensible SRA provides a clear, evidence-backed narrative of your organization’s cybersecurity risk posture. A defensible SRA proves that you have undertaken a systematic and thorough evaluation of potential security risks.

Key attributes of a defensible SRA include:

• Framework Alignment: The analysis must be grounded in a recognized framework such as NIST CSF or NIST 800-53. The framework ensures a consistent and formally documented methodology for defining scope, modeling threats, and scoring risk.
• Risk-Based: Risks must be identified and ranked using transparent criteria for likelihood and impact criteria. A methodical approach ensures that remediation efforts are focused on the most significant risk exposures to the organization.
• Evidence-Based: Every finding must be connected to specific evidence such as policies, logs, scan results, change records, etc. The evidence proves that actions were identified, taken, and validated.
• Actionable Remediation Roadmap: The outcome of an SRA is a clear remediation plan with designated owners, realistic timelines, and specific validation steps. The remediation roadmap transforms the analysis from a static report into a dynamic tool for achieving measurable risk mitigation.

Regulators and auditors are no longer satisfied with simple assertions. They demand a documented trail that answers critical questions: who performed the analysis, how risks were determined, what evidence supports the findings, and how were corrective actions verified?

If your SRA lacks defensible evidence, you significantly increase your exposure to audit findings, financial penalties, and lasting reputational damage.

The Evidence to Collect for a Defensible SRA

A defensible SRA succeeds based on the quality and organization of supporting evidence. Collecting the right artifacts is crucial for proving the integrity of your analysis. While the actual evidence to collect depends on the framework that forms the basis of your SRA, this generic list of artifacts to collect will get you started.

Organizational Scope

What to collect: An up-to-date Asset inventory (servers, endpoints, applications, cloud services, etc.), logical and physical network diagrams, and a list of all vendors and third-party lists including their roles and access levels.

Why it matters: This evidence demonstrates that your scope is complete and allows auditors to verify that all critical systems and data flows were included in the analysis.

Policies, Procedures and Governance

What to collect: Your policies, procedures and standards demonstrating your cybersecurity governance. The evidence must include review dates and approvals.

Why it matters: This evidence demonstrates your organization’s commitment to governance.

Threats and Vulnerabilities

What to collect: Recent vulnerability scan reports, penetration test results, Intrusion Detection/Prevention System (IDS/IPS)  alerts, historical incident reports, and recent security event logs.

Why it matters: This evidence demonstrates  technical evidence of current and historical weaknesses, providing a clear view of your threat exposure.

Risk Assessment

What to collect: Documentation that supports the risk scoring methodology, a complete risk register that details threats, vulnerabilities, existing controls, and residual risks), and any gap analysis documentation.

Why it matters: This evidence demonstrates the core of your analysis, demonstrating precisely how risks were evaluated and prioritized. This evidence justifies your risk remediation strategy.

Remediation and Mitigation

What to collect: Remediation plans, associated change tickets, configuration change records, patch deployment logs, and evidence of control implementation such as screenshots or test results.

Why it matters: This evidence demonstrates that issues are identified, and actively tracked, assigned, and effectively resolved.

Monitoring, Reviews, and Audits

What to collect: Internal audit reports, SRA review notes, records of reassessments following major changes, and a personnel cybersecurity training and awareness program.

Why it matters: This evidence demonstrates that the SRA is part of an ongoing risk management program and not a one-time, check-the-box activity.

A Structured Approach to Becoming Audit-Ready

Adopting a structured approach is the key to building a defensible SRA program. This workflow can guide your organization from an ad-hoc process to a repeatable, audit-ready state.

1. Define Scope and Stakeholders: Identify all systems, data types, locations, and vendors included in the SRA. Assign owners and points of contact for each area.
2. Baseline and Inventory: Produce or refresh your asset inventories and network diagrams. Confirm and formally document all critical data flows.
3. Assess Threats and Vulnerabilities: Collect and analyze technical data from scans, penetration tests, and logs. Incorporate relevant threat intelligence.
4. Create the Risk Register: Apply your formally documented scoring methodology to capture the likelihood, impact, existing controls, and residual risk for each identified threat.
5. Collect Evidence: Use a standardized evidence request list to gather artifacts from internal teams and vendors. Track receipt and maintain version control.
6. Prioritize and Plan Remediation: Assign owners, set timelines, and estimate the resources required for each mitigation task based on the risk register.
7. Implement and Verify Changes: Record all remediation using change tickets and perform validation testing to confirm effectiveness.
8. Reassess and Monitor: Reevaluate risk levels after significant organizational or technical changes and maintain a schedule of periodic reviews.

Conclusion: From Compliance Chore to Strategic Advantage

A defensible Security Risk Analysis is the foundation of effective risk management and a non-negotiable component of a robust security posture. By focusing on a repeatable framework, comprehensive evidence collection, and clear governance, an SRA transforms from a compliance burden into a strategic tool for assurance and risk management.

This approach prepares you for audits and also strengthens your defenses against real-world threats, protecting your patients, systems, and organization.

Ready to make your next SRA defensible and audit-ready? At Meditology Services, we provide the deep healthcare context and proven methodology to make your SRA fully defensible.

Our SRA methodology and evidence request list help you build a clear, evidence-based trail that withstands scrutiny. We assist in tailoring assessments to specific frameworks, mapping evidence to findings, and prioritizing remediation to transform your SRA into a cornerstone of your risk management program.

About the Author

Morgan is an experienced security and emerging technologies consultant, with varied expertise across information security, organizational governance, and IT audit practices. As the leader of the Strategic Risk Consulting and AI/ML service lines at Meditology, he has led and contributed to hundreds of consulting engagements across public and private entities.

Since 2019, he has served as lead architect and product owner of an innovative risk quantification, analysis, and reporting solution utilizing MITRE ATT&CK and similar authoritative sources to establish a data-driven and dynamic mechanism to assess, report on, and manage organizational risk – supporting a variety of premier healthcare organizations, including the nation’s largest hospital system.

Morgan is currently an executive board member with InfraGard Atlanta, an effort lead with the OWASP AI Exchange, and serves as an external advisor for AI and automation working groups at some of the nation’s premiere providers.