Control statement
Respond to findings from security and privacy assessments, monitoring, and audits in accordance with organizational risk tolerance.
Discussion
Organizations have many options for responding to risk including mitigating risk by implementing new controls or strengthening existing controls, accepting risk with appropriate justification or rationale, sharing or transferring risk, or avoiding risk. The risk tolerance of the organization influences risk response decisions and actions. Risk response addresses the need to determine an appropriate response to risk before generating a plan of action and milestones entry. For example, the response may be to accept risk or reject risk, or it may be possible to mitigate the risk immediately so that a plan of action and milestones entry is not needed. However, if the risk response is to mitigate the risk, and the mitigation cannot be completed immediately, a plan of action and milestones entry is generated.
From control text to operational evidence
Use Risk Response as a testable risk decision. Translate the official statement into accountable people, repeatable processes, configured technology, and evidence that demonstrates the outcome over time. In this family, pay particular attention to risk framing, threat and vulnerability analysis, impact, criticality, and response decisions.
Implementation workflow
- Define the control boundary, responsible owner, inherited portions, and systems or processes in scope.
- Resolve each organization-defined parameter before declaring the control implemented.
- Document how the implementation satisfies every clause of the official control statement.
- Collect evidence as a normal byproduct of operation rather than only before an assessment.
- Review exceptions, changes, and monitoring results on a risk-based cadence.
Evidence examples
- risk assessments and threat models
- vulnerability findings and prioritization records
- supply-chain risk assessments
- risk response and acceptance decisions
Common failure patterns
- risk registers detached from technical evidence
- vulnerability severity treated as business impact
- assessments not updated after material change
- accepted risks have no owner or expiration
Questions practitioners should ask
- What risk decision is this control intended to support in this system?
- Which parts are implemented locally, inherited, shared, or not applicable—and what evidence supports that decision?
- Do the documented narrative, deployed configuration, operating process, and collected evidence agree?
- What event or threshold requires the implementation to be reviewed or changed?
Assessment objectives and methods
Show the assessment objective
- RA-07[01]findings from security assessments are responded to in accordance with organizational risk tolerance;
- RA-07[02]findings from privacy assessments are responded to in accordance with organizational risk tolerance;
- RA-07[03]findings from monitoring are responded to in accordance with organizational risk tolerance;
- RA-07[04]findings from audits are responded to in accordance with organizational risk tolerance.
Examine
- Risk assessment policy
- assessment reports
- audit records/event logs
- system security plan
- privacy plan
- other relevant documents or records
Interview
- Organizational personnel with assessment and auditing responsibilities
- system/network administrators
- organizational personnel with security and privacy responsibilities
Test
- Organizational processes for assessments and audits
- mechanisms/tools supporting and/or implementing assessments and auditing
Related controls
These relationships come from the official OSCAL catalog. They indicate useful dependencies or context, not automatic inheritance or equivalence.
Related NIST SP 800-171 requirements
These Rev. 3 requirements cite this base control or one of its enhancements as a source. The relationship does not by itself determine contractual applicability or complete implementation.
Authoritative sources
Bare Metal Cyber is an independent educational publisher and is not affiliated with or endorsed by NIST. Official control requirements and interpretations remain with NIST and the responsible authorizing organization.