What is the Second Line of Defense?
Essential to effective risk management, the lines-of-defense model is implicit in COSO’s internal control framework through the control environment, control, activities, monitoring and other components of an internal control system. It provides assurance to the board of directors, as the elected representatives of the shareholders to oversee the organization’s operations on their behalf, that risks are reduced to a manageable level as dictated by the organization’s appetite for risk. Much more than “segregating incompatible duties” and “ensuring checks and balances,” the lines-of defense model emphasizes a fundamental concept of risk management: From the boardroom to the customer-facing processes, managing risk is everyone’s responsibility.
