Active

Continuous Improvement

The organization shall establish a continuous improvement process for threat modeling, driving ongoing enhancement of threat identification and mitigation effectiveness. The process shall include mechanisms for identifying improvement opportunities, implementing changes, and measuring results, drawing inputs from threat reviews, incident analysis, and best practice benchmarking.

Requirement ID
ARC-003-R010
Parent Control
ARC-003
Domain Code
ARC

Requirement Details & Guidance

ARC-003-R010 · ARC-003
Why This Requirement Exists

This requirement exists to systematically improve architecture effectiveness and maturity using reviews, incidents, threat intelligence, and benchmarking and to ensure security architecture decisions are consistent, risk-informed, and traceable.

Implementation Guidance

Establish a documented process for systematically improve architecture effectiveness and maturity using reviews, incidents, threat intelligence, and benchmarking. Define accountable roles, required inputs and outputs, approval or validation points, criteria, review frequency, exception handling, monitoring, and evidence requirements. Integrate the activity with architecture governance, risk management, security requirements, engineering, and change processes as applicable. Retain records sufficient to demonstrate that the control operates.

Practical Application & Audit Readiness

ARC-003-R010 · Field Guidance

Business Examples

    Common Audit Findings

      Common Mistakes

        Best Practices & Ownership

        ARC-003 · Recommended Approach

        Recommended Practices

          Typical Owner

          Cross-Mapped Regulatory Frameworks

          Harmonized Control Mappings
          FRAMEWORK CODE FRAMEWORK NAME & DETAILS FAMILY / CATEGORY VERSION ACTION
          ISO27001 ISO/IEC 27001 ISO/IEC 27001 specifies auditable requirements for... Clause: 10.1 – Continual improvement
          ISO
          Standard
          		 v2022 View →
          RBI-CSF RBI Cyber Security Framework / Master Directions RBI cyber-security requirements and directions set... Clause: 6) Application Security Life Cycle (ASLC) – 6.6 Threat modelling, secure coding, security testing and secure rollout; Circular §5 – Identification/assessment of inherent cyber risks and controls
          India
          Regulation
          		 vLatest View →
          SEBI-CSCRF SEBI Cyber Security & Cyber Resilience Framework SEBI’s Cybersecurity and Cyber Resilience Framewor... Clause: 2.2 ID.RA: Risk Assessment
          India
          Regulation
          		 vLatest View →
          DORA Digital Operational Resilience Act The EU Digital Operational Resilience Act establis... Clause: Article 8(2) – Continuous identification of ICT risk sources, cyber threats and ICT vulnerabilities Article 6(8)(d) – ICT reference architecture and changes needed for business objectives
          EU
          Regulation
          		 vCurrent View →
          NIS2 NIS2 Directive The NIS2 Directive establishes EU-wide cybersecuri... Clause: Article 21(2)(a) – Policies on risk analysis and information system security
          EU
          Directive
          		 vCurrent View →
          NIST-CSF NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) The NIST Cybersecurity Framework provides high-lev... Clause: ID.IM – Improvement | ID.IM-03 – Improvements are identified from execution of operational processes, procedures, and activities
          NIST
          Framework
          		 v2 View →
          NIST80053 NIST SP 800-53 NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 presents control families, i... Clause: 3.16 – RISK ASSESSMENT; RA-3 – RISK ASSESSMENT, RA-5 – VULNERABILITY MONITORING AND SCANNING
          NIST
          Control Catalog
          		 vRev. 5 View →
          SOC2 SOC 2 Trust Services Criteria SOC 2 is an independent examination and reporting... Clause: CC3.2 – Risk Assessment – COSO Principle 7: The entity identifies risks to the achievement of its objectives across the entity and analyzes risks as a basis for determining how the risks should be managed. CC6.6 – Logical and Physical Access Controls – The entity implements logical access security measures to protect against threats from sources outside its system boundaries. CC4.1 – Monitoring of Controls – COSO Principle 16: The entity selects, develops, and performs ongoing and/or separate evaluations to ascertain whether the components of internal control are present and functioning. CC4.2 – Monitoring of Controls – COSO Principle 17: The entity evaluates and communicates internal control deficiencies in a timely manner to those parties responsible for taking corrective action, including senior management and the board of directors, as appropriate.
          AICPA
          Audit Framework
          		 vLatest View →

          Parent Domain Context

          Governance Domain Baseline
          Domain Name:
          Security Architecture (ARC)
          Purpose:
          To design secure systems and ensure security is built into the architecture.
          Scope:
          Enterprise
          View

          Parent Control Context

          Control Baseline
          Control Name:
          Threat Modeling (ARC-003)
          Summary:
          Establishes threat modeling including threat identification, attack surface analysis, risk assessment, mitigation planning, validation, monitoring, reporting, review, and continuous improvement.
          Business Description:
          Establish and maintain threat modeling processes to identify, assess, prioritize, and mitigate security threats during the design of systems, applications, infrastructure, APIs, and cloud services.
          View