What it asks for. The organisation must develop a comprehensive strategy to manage security and privacy risks, including risk tolerance, acceptable mitigation strategies and how risk is assessed and monitored, implement it consistently and review and update it periodically.
In practice. This means a board or executive-approved risk management framework that states risk appetite, links cyber risk to enterprise risk management and defines how risks are escalated and accepted. Auditors expect the approved strategy, evidence it is applied in decisions and review records. NIS2 places explicit accountability for cyber risk management on management bodies, and ISO/IEC 27001 and ISO 31000 offer similar structures.
Common gaps. Risk appetite statements are often too vague to guide decisions. Cyber risk is sometimes managed separately from enterprise risk, so executives see an incomplete picture.