What are Some Use Case Scenarios for Reasonable Security and DoCRA?
For some organizations, security has long been more than simply meeting compliance or network requirements. There is a growing expectation from executive teams, customers, regulators, and insurers that an organization needs to be able to demonstrate that cybersecurity programs are reasonable, fair, balanced, and defensible. They want to see security decisions that are data-driven, defensible, and aligned to actual risk.
The good news is that Duty of Care Risk Analysis (DoCRA) is a practical framework that provides organizations with a way to define, implement, and demonstrate reasonable security and care to all stakeholders. It does this by balancing the needs of the business with the impact on all parties that could be harmed by security decisions, as well as the likelihood and size of those foreseeable threats.
Below are real-world case scenarios that cover common pain points for organizations in how DoCRA provides a practical, evidence-based solution for managing and demonstrating reasonable security to internal and external stakeholders.
Use Case 1: Navigating Overlapping Security Requirements
Pain Point: Organizations can be subject to many overlapping and sometimes conflicting requirements. Requirements might include federal and state laws like HIPAA and state privacy laws as well as contractual security requirements and internal policies.
Leaders want to know which controls matter most; how much is enough, and how to prioritize controls without overspending.
How DoCRA Solves It: DoCRA allows an organization to translate regulatory expectations into measurable harm scenarios. Instead of guessing as to what might cause regulators, courts, or juries concern, DoCRA requires the organization to identify risks that can be reasonably foreseen to cause harm to patients, business operations, and partners.
Controls are then mapped to those harms so leadership can demonstrate that security decisions are reasonable, cost-justified, and aligned to regulatory intent. DoCRA analysis also helps to justify why certain controls should be prioritized sooner than others and documents the reasoning in business language that legal, compliance, and auditors can understand.
Use Case 2: Communicating Business Value to Executive or Board Members
Pain Point: Security teams often have difficulty in explaining the business value of cybersecurity. Leadership wants risk reduction, but they also must balance budgetary constraints and operational demands.
Security requests lack a common language, so they can sound subjective or overly technical.
How DoCRA Solves It: DoCRA reframes risks in terms that leaders already understand, including impacts to customers, partners, and the business mission.
Analysts no longer need to present long lists of vulnerabilities; they can instead present quantified harm scenarios and risk thresholds. Executives can now compare investment decisions based on how much harm they prevent and how reasonable each control is given its cost and burden. This builds trust, supports smarter budgeting, and ensures that leadership understands the justification behind each cybersecurity decision.
Use Case 3: Prioritizing Controls During Incident Response and Remediation
Pain Point: After a breach occurs, it can be hard to know where to begin. Legal counsel, regulators, and cyber insurers request evidence to show how decisions were made, but the conditions of a crisis make it difficult to justify prioritization.
How DoCRA Solves It: DoCRA provides a decision-making model that focuses on minimizing harm to all stakeholders. When applied to incident response, DoCRA guides teams to choose containment and remediation actions that most effectively reduce foreseeable harm to customers, employees, and the business.
This creates a defensible path that also aligns with regulatory expectations for reasonable security. It also reduces conflict across legal, IT, PR, and security teams because the criteria for choosing actions are already agreed upon in advance.
Use Case 4: Demonstrating Reasonable Security to Regulators, Insurers, and Attorneys
Pain Point: In many investigations, attorneys or regulators will ask the critical question, “Did the organization act reasonably?” Without a structured model, it isn’t easy to defend decisions. Insurers may deny claims. Regulators may pursue enforcement. Legal counsel may struggle to demonstrate good faith efforts.
How DoCRA Solves It: DoCRA delivers a documented, measurable method that helps organizations evaluate whether controls meet an acceptable level of risk for all parties involved.
The organization can point to formal criteria, scoring, thresholds, and harm analysis to show that decisions were not arbitrary. This reduces legal exposure, strengthens insurance negotiations, and demonstrates compliance with laws that reference reasonable security, such as the FTC Act Section 5, state privacy regulations, HIPAA, and other standards.
Use Case 5: Balancing Usability and Security for Business Operations
Pain Point: Security controls can sometimes slow down productivity. Employees push back against strong authentication, system changes or security tools that disrupt workflows. Leaders worry about operational friction and user frustration.
How DoCRA Solves It: DoCRA helps organizations compare the operational burden of a control against the harm it prevents. If a control introduces too much friction relative to the risk, DoCRA provides a structured justification for adjusting or replacing it. This supports better adoption, reduces shadow IT, and ensures that controls are effective without overwhelming users.
It also aligns with the idea that reasonable security considers the needs of both the business and the people affected by security decisions.
Use Case 6: Managing Third-Party and Vendor Risk
Pain Point: Vendors handle sensitive data, but businesses can struggle to determine which vendor risks matter most and what level of oversight is appropriate.
Applying the same checklist to all vendors leads to unnecessary delays and misaligned expectations.
How DoCRA Solves It: DoCRA evaluates vendor risks based on foreseeable harm to customers, operations, and stakeholders. Control requirements are scaled to the types of data and services the vendor handles, avoiding overburdening low-risk vendors while ensuring high-risk vendors meet higher standards. This strengthens procurement, reduces vendor onboarding delays, and ensures contractual security obligations are reasonable and enforceable.
Why DoCRA Matters
Reasonable security is no longer a vague concept. Courts, regulators, and legal professionals are increasingly expecting organizations to demonstrate a fair, consistent, and risk-based approach to security decisions.
DoCRA helps organizations answer the most important question in cybersecurity: Did we protect others in a way that is justified, balanced, and defensible?
By grounding decisions in harm analysis, business context, and measurable thresholds, organizations can confidently defend their security policies, manage regulatory expectations, and demonstrate that they have acted responsibly.
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