Coherence is the consistency between a risk assessment, the controls chosen in response, and the final security program. In practical terms, it means the organization can explain why a specific threat was judged important, why certain safeguards were selected, and how those safeguards fit together without contradiction.
In cyber security, coherence matters because fragmented or inconsistent decisions create gaps. A team may score risks one way, choose controls that do not match those risks, or keep exceptions that undermine the overall design. Attackers benefit from those gaps, while defenders use coherence to make prioritization credible, compare repeated decisions, and show that security measures are aligned with business context. Under frameworks such as NIS 2, coherence helps prove that compliance is not just a list of tools, but a defensible, internally consistent security system.