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How to choose an SGRC system: comparison criteria

SGRC (Security Governance, Risk and Compliance) is an information security, risk, and compliance management system: it tracks assets, risks, requirements, controls, owners, and evidence. SIEM collects and correlates events, SOAR automates incident response, and SGRC shows which requirements the company complies with and what evidence supports that. It is needed when there are so many requirements, systems, and owners that registers in spreadsheets no longer reconcile.

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SGRC, SIEM, SOAR and IRP: who is responsible for what

Four classes of systems are often purchased and discussed together, but they answer different questions. Confusion here leads to expecting event correlation from SGRC and compliance reporting from SIEM.

Class	The main question	What it manages and does	What it passes to adjacent systems
SGRC Security Governance, Risk and Compliance	What requirements we must comply with, what risks are open and how we confirm this	Assets, risks, requirements, controls, owners, exceptions, checks, tasks and evidence	Asset criticality and priorities — in SIEM and SOAR; tasks — in ITSM
SIEM Security Information and Event Management	What is happening in infrastructure right now	Collects logs and events, normalizes, correlates, identifies suspicious chains	Incidents — in SOAR/IRP, facts and metrics — in SGRC
SOAR Security Orchestration, Automation and Response	How to respond quickly and uniformly	Runs the playbook: enriches the incident, checks indicators, blocks the account, notifies the responsible parties	Response progress and outcome — in SGRC and reporting
IRP Incident Response Platform	Who did what and when regarding the incident	Incident tracking, cards, routes and response times; in a number of products it is integrated with SOAR	Incident statistics — to SGRC

In short: SIEM sees an event, SOAR and IRP organize the response, SGRC links incidents and vulnerabilities with risks, requirements, owners, and management reporting. More about the integration — on the page SIEM, SOAR and SGRC.

Criteria for selecting an SGRC system

There is no universally “best” SGRC system: on the Russian market, SGRC products are available, for example, from R-Vision and Security Vision, and each is stronger in its own scenarios. It makes sense to compare them using the same set of questions for each product.

Asset management

Is it possible to import assets from CMDB, AD, scanners, and inventory data instead of entering them manually, and how often does synchronization occur?
How the owner, criticality, and the asset's association with a business process are specified.
How the system handles duplicates and assets that have disappeared from sources.

Risks and assessment methods

Which risk assessment methodologies are supported out of the box, and can you configure your own: scales, formulas, matrix?
Are risk, threat, vulnerability, asset and control linked into a single chain?
How are risk decisions — accept, mitigate, transfer — recorded and who approves them?

Regulatory requirements

Check which requirements libraries are included in the delivery, who updates them and how often, and whether one measure can be mapped to multiple documents at once. For Russian companies, the following are usually required:

personal data — Federal Law No. 152-FZ “On Personal Data” And Order of FSTEC of Russia № 21;
CII — Federal Law No. 187-FZ «On the Security of Critical Information Infrastructure of the Russian Federation» And Order of the FSTEC of Russia No. 239;
state information systems — Order of FSTEC of Russia No. 117 dated 11.04.2025;
financial institutions — GOST R 57580.1-2017 And GOST R 57580.2-2018, regulatory acts of the Bank of Russia;
internal policies and standards of the company, including international frameworks, if applicable.

The presence of a library does not imply compliance: the applicability of requirements to a specific system is determined by an assessment, not by the product.

Integrations

SIEM and SOAR — retrieval of incidents and response metrics.
CMDB and ITSM — assets, changes, remediation tasks with owners and deadlines.
AD/LDAP — users, roles, owners.
Vulnerability scanners — vulnerabilities tied to assets and risks.
Is there a documented API and ready-made connectors, rather than only file exports?

Reporting and audit

Are reports for management, audit and inspectors generated without manual assembly in spreadsheets.
Is the evidence base — documents, extracts, protocols — stored next to the requirement it confirms?
Is a change log maintained: who changed the risk assessment or the status of the measure and when.

Licensing model

What is considered a license unit: users, assets, modules, requirement libraries.
Which modules are needed for your scenario and what will have to be purchased additionally as you grow.
Cost of ownership: implementation, support, library updates, enhancements.

On-premise and the registry of Russian software

Is the system deployed within the customer's perimeter and on which OS and DBMS.
Is there a product entry in Unified Register of Russian Programs for Electronic Computers and Databases (maintained pursuant to Resolution of the Government of the Russian Federation dated 16.11.2015 No. 1236) — this is checked against the register itself.
Does the product have an FSTEC of Russia certificate, if it is needed for your perimeter, — via the registry of certified security products.

AI features

In SGRC systems and alongside them, AI capabilities are appearing: search for requirements in documents, matching requirements to controls, drafts of checklists and reports. They should be compared using the same rules as the rest of the functionality: where the model runs, what data goes into it, whether there is a request log, and who approves the result. An example of this class is — AI in information security: SOC, SGRC and compliance.

Pilot checklist: what to check on a test bench

A pilot on the test stand—several weeks in a limited environment—should provide answers to specific questions, not an interface demonstration. The list that should be agreed with the vendor in advance:

Have the assets from your sources been loaded, and do they match the actual infrastructure?
Did you manage to describe two or three real risks using your methodology and link them to assets and measures?
Does the delivery include the requirements library you need, and how much manual work went into mapping the measures?
Have incidents from SIEM or SOAR arrived, and have they been reflected in risks and reports?
Are tasks created in ITSM with an owner and a due date, and is the status returned?
Was the head of the information security department able to get a report for management without additional refinement in the tables?
How long did the setup take, and what was required for it from the vendor, the integrator, and your specialists?
What modifications will be required for production operations, and how much will they cost?

Typical implementation errors

There is no register of assets. Risks and measures cannot be tied to anything; the system is filled in manually and becomes outdated within months.
There are no process owners. Tasks and risks are hanging on the information security service, not on those who can close them.
Automation before process description. Chaos is being transferred into the system: the risk assessment methodology, exception procedure, and roles are not aligned.
Selection by function list. The product is selected based on a demonstration, and integrations with SIEM, CMDB and ITSM are checked only after purchase.
A bet solely on regulation. SGRC is used as a document repository for audits, and management reporting on risks is not generated.

Frequently asked questions

What is SGRC in simple words?

SGRC (Security Governance, Risk and Compliance) is a system in which the information security team manages assets, risks, requirements, controls, owners, deadlines, and evidence. It shows which requirements the company complies with, which risks are open, and who is responsible for mitigating them.

How does SGRC differ from SOAR?

SOAR automates response to specific incidents using playbooks: enrichment, indicator verification, blocking, and notifications. SGRC operates at the management level: risks, requirements, controls, and reporting. SOAR sends the progress and result of the response to SGRC, and SGRC links them to risks and requirements.

Is SGRC needed for CII?

Federal Law No. 187-FZ and the orders of FSTEC of Russia do not require an SGRC system as such. They require categorizing CII objects, ensuring their security and implementing protection measures — for significant objects, in accordance with FSTEC of Russia Order No. 239. SGRC helps keep this record — objects, requirements, measures, owners and evidence — when there are many objects and requirements.

How to compare SGRC systems?

Using the same set of criteria: asset management, risk assessment methodologies, requirements libraries and their updates, integrations with SIEM, SOAR, CMDB, ITSM and AD, reporting and audit, licensing model, operation within the customer's perimeter and entry in the Russian software registry. The result is validated by a pilot on a test stand with your data.

Is it possible to start without SGRC?

Yes. If there are few requirements and systems, a requirements register, a risk register, and a clear evidence base are sufficient. An SGRC platform is needed when there are multiple contours, audits repeat, there are many owners, and manual control no longer scales.

How does IRP differ from SOAR?

IRP (Incident Response Platform) keeps track of incidents: cards, routes, deadlines, and responsible parties. SOAR adds automation of actions based on playbooks and integrations with security tools. In many products, both functions are combined.

How RESTART participates

RESTART works with SGRC as part of its practice SIEM, SOAR and SGRC:

Survey — event sources, assets, information security tools, roles, regulations, reporting requirements and applicable regulatory requirements.
Project — HLD/LLD architecture, roles of SIEM, SOAR and SGRC, vendor comparison, verification of integrations and cost of ownership.
Implementation — SGRC processes: policies, controls, risks, owners, exceptions, tasks, deadlines, statuses, audit and management reporting.
Operation — procedures, role matrix, metrics, and post-launch support.

If you first need to understand which requirements apply and where the gaps are, — IS compliance. AI assistant for working with risks, controls and tasks from SGRC — module Security & Compliance AI; the conclusions in it are approved by the customer's specialists. We select platforms via vendor information security ecosystem, and complex scenarios can be tested on the test stand cybersecurity labs.

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