CRISC Practice Test 2 — 25 Questions

Question 1

A company has a control that automatically rejects transactions over $10,000. During a review, it is found that 2% of transactions over $10,000 were approved due to a system glitch. The control owner says the glitch has been fixed. What should the risk practitioner do next?

Accepted Answer

Request evidence of the fix and perform a sample test of recent transactions.. Option B is correct because the risk practitioner must independently verify that the system glitch has been resolved before closing the finding. Requesting evidence of the fix (e.g., change logs, patch notes) and performing a sample test of recent transactions provides objective assurance that the control is now operating effectively. This aligns with the CRISC principle that control owner assurances alone are insufficient without validation, especially for automated controls where residual risk from the glitch could persist.

Answer

Accept the control owner's assurance and close the finding.

Answer

Recommend a compensating control until the fix is confirmed.

Answer

Report the issue to the audit committee.

Question 2

For a risk with very low likelihood and low impact, what is the typical risk response?

Accepted Answer

Accept. When a risk has very low likelihood and low impact, the cost of implementing controls (mitigation, transfer, or avoidance) typically exceeds the potential loss. Accepting the risk is the most cost-effective response, as it acknowledges the residual risk without active treatment. This aligns with the principle that risk acceptance is appropriate for risks below the organization's risk appetite threshold.

Answer

Mitigate

Answer

Transfer

Answer

Avoid

Question 3

A multinational e-commerce company has experienced multiple security incidents involving unauthorized access to customer payment data. The incidents originated from different regional offices and exploited misconfigured firewall rules. The risk manager needs to identify the root cause of these risks. Which approach would BEST help in identifying the root cause of the IT risk?

Accepted Answer

Perform a root cause analysis on the firewall misconfigurations to determine underlying process weaknesses.. Option C is correct because conducting a root cause analysis on the firewall misconfigurations will identify the underlying weaknesses in the change management process. Option A is wrong because increasing logging without analysis does not identify root cause. Option B is wrong because a penetration test may find vulnerabilities but not the process failure. Option D is wrong because updating the risk register is a result of identification, not a method to identify root cause.

Answer

Implement additional logging on all firewall devices to capture configuration changes.

Answer

Conduct a penetration test targeting all regional office networks to identify vulnerabilities.

Answer

Update the risk register to include the incidents and assign risk owners.

Question 4

Which of the following is the PRIMARY purpose of conducting a business impact analysis (BIA) during the IT risk assessment process?

Accepted Answer

To determine the criticality and recovery time objectives of business processes. Option B is correct because the BIA identifies critical business processes and their recovery priorities. Option A is wrong because vulnerability assessment is separate. Option C is wrong because threats are identified in threat modeling. Option D is wrong because asset inventory is part of asset management.

Answer

To identify vulnerabilities in IT systems

Answer

To identify potential threat actors

Answer

To inventory all IT assets

Question 5

A risk assessment reveals that a legacy system has a high vulnerability score but low business criticality. The cost to remediate is high. What is the MOST appropriate risk response?

Accepted Answer

Accept the risk and monitor it. Option B is correct because acceptance is appropriate when the cost of mitigation exceeds the potential loss. Option A is wrong because mitigation might not be cost-effective. Option C is wrong because avoidance might not be necessary. Option D is wrong because transfer might not be possible for legacy systems.

Answer

Avoid the risk by decommissioning the system

Answer

Mitigate the vulnerability with a patch

Answer

Transfer the risk via a managed security service

Question 6

A manufacturing company uses an industrial control system (ICS) that is connected to the corporate network for monitoring. The risk manager is identifying risks related to this connectivity. Which of the following is the MOST significant risk?

Accepted Answer

Compromise of ICS causing physical damage to manufacturing equipment.. The most significant risk is that a compromise of the ICS could lead to physical damage, such as equipment destruction, safety hazards, or environmental release. Unlike IT systems where data loss is the primary concern, ICS failures directly impact the physical world, making safety and operational integrity the top priority in risk identification.

Answer

Malware infection spreading from corporate to ICS network.

Answer

Network congestion due to ICS traffic affecting corporate users.

Answer

Unauthorized access to corporate data through the ICS connection.

Question 7

During a control monitoring review, it is discovered that a detective control has a high false positive rate. What is the MOST significant impact of this issue?

Accepted Answer

Increased risk of missing actual security incidents.. Option D is correct because high false positives can cause alert fatigue, leading to missed real incidents. Option A is a secondary effect. Option B is not directly caused by false positives. Option C is a possible result but not the most significant.

Answer

Loss of confidence in the control by management.

Answer

Reduced system performance due to alert processing.

Answer

Increased cost of investigating alerts.

Question 8

A risk officer is evaluating the effectiveness of a control that prevents unauthorized changes to configuration files. The control has not detected any unauthorized changes in the past year. What does this indicate?

Accepted Answer

Further testing is needed to determine control effectiveness.. The absence of detected unauthorized changes does not automatically confirm control effectiveness; it could also indicate that the control is not properly configured to detect changes (e.g., missing file integrity monitoring rules, incorrect baseline, or disabled logging). Further testing—such as manually introducing a test change or reviewing audit logs—is required to verify that the control can actually detect violations. This aligns with CRISC best practices for validating control effectiveness through testing rather than relying solely on absence of alerts.

Answer

The control is unnecessary because no changes occurred.

Answer

The control is not configured correctly to detect changes.

Answer

The control is operating effectively and no violations occurred.

Question 9

Based on the risk register exhibit, which of the following is the MOST appropriate risk response for R-0042?

Accepted Answer

Accept the risk and continue monitoring. R-0042 is a low-likelihood, low-impact risk involving PII stored with AES-256 encryption and strict access controls. The residual risk is within the organization's risk appetite, making acceptance with continued monitoring the most appropriate response. Mitigation, transfer, or avoidance would introduce unnecessary cost or operational disruption for a risk already well-controlled.

Answer

Mitigate the risk by implementing additional encryption controls

Answer

Transfer the risk to a third-party insurer

Answer

Avoid the risk by discontinuing storage of PII

Question 10

Refer to the exhibit. An organization has identified vulnerabilities on a critical server. The risk owner has limited resources and can remediate only one finding this quarter. Based on the information provided, which approach is the most appropriate risk assessment decision?

Accepted Answer

Remediate the SSL/TLS certificate vulnerability first, as it affects a critical service and has a higher severity.. Option B is correct because the SSL/TLS certificate vulnerability affects a critical service (likely HTTPS) and has a higher severity rating, making it the most urgent risk to address given limited resources. Risk assessment prioritizes remediating vulnerabilities that pose the greatest threat to critical business functions, even if another finding is easier to fix. The risk owner should allocate the single remediation slot to the highest-severity vulnerability on a critical server to maximize risk reduction.

Answer

Remediate both findings by reallocating budget from another project.

Answer

Remediate the SSH vulnerability first because it is easier to fix (upgrade OpenSSH).

Answer

Accept both risks because they are low and medium severity, and resources are limited.

Question 11

You are the risk manager for a healthcare organization that uses an electronic health records (EHR) system. The system has a built-in audit log that records all access to patient data. Recently, the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) raised a concern that there have been multiple reports of unauthorized access to patient records, but the audit log analysis has not identified any suspicious activity. You have been asked to investigate. Your review of the audit log configuration reveals that the system only logs successful access events, not failed access attempts. Additionally, the log retention period is set to 30 days, and the logs are stored in a flat file on the same server as the EHR application. The monitoring team manually reviews the logs at the end of each month. Which of the following is the MOST significant risk associated with the current monitoring approach?

Accepted Answer

Storing logs on the same server as the EHR application exposes them to alteration or deletion if the server is compromised.. Storing audit logs on the same server as the EHR application violates the principle of log segregation. If the server is compromised, an attacker can alter or delete the logs to cover their tracks, making detection impossible. This is the most significant risk because it directly undermines the integrity and availability of the evidence needed to investigate unauthorized access.

Answer

The 30-day log retention period is too short to detect long-term patterns of unauthorized access.

Answer

Manual review of logs is ineffective and may miss critical events; automated monitoring should be implemented.

Answer

The audit log does not capture failed access attempts, which could indicate brute-force attacks or unauthorized access attempts.

Question 12

An organization decides to outsource its data center operations to a third party. This is an example of which risk response?

Accepted Answer

Risk transfer. Outsourcing data center operations transfers the financial and operational risks associated with managing the infrastructure to a third-party provider. This is a classic risk transfer response because the organization retains ownership of the data and business accountability but shifts the liability for physical security, hardware maintenance, and uptime to the vendor via contractual agreements, such as SLAs with penalty clauses.

Answer

Risk reduction

Answer

Risk acceptance

Answer

Risk avoidance

Question 13

Refer to the exhibit. A risk practitioner is reviewing the access control list for a critical server. The ACL is applied inbound on the interface connecting to the internet. Which of the following is the MOST significant risk?

Accepted Answer

The ACL permits all HTTPS and DNS traffic from the subnet, increasing attack surface. Option A is correct because permitting all HTTPS (TCP/443) and DNS (UDP/53) traffic from any source on the internet to the critical server unnecessarily exposes the server to potential exploitation of vulnerabilities in the web server software (e.g., Apache, Nginx) and DNS resolver services. This broad permit statement increases the attack surface significantly, as HTTPS and DNS are common vectors for attacks such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and DNS amplification or tunneling. The risk is heightened because the ACL is applied inbound on the internet-facing interface, meaning all external traffic matching these protocols is allowed without restriction, bypassing any stateful inspection or application-layer filtering.

Answer

The ACL has no logging enabled

Answer

The ACL is missing a permit statement for HTTP

Answer

The ACL blocks all traffic from the internet

Question 14

During a risk assessment for a critical financial application, the IT risk manager identifies a vulnerability in the application's authentication module. The exploit would require authenticated access. Which risk rating is most appropriate if the vulnerability has a CVSS base score of 9.0, but the application is behind a strong firewall and requires two-factor authentication?

Accepted Answer

Medium, after considering the compensating controls. Option A is correct because the CVSS base score of 9.0 reflects the intrinsic severity of the vulnerability, but the final risk rating must incorporate compensating controls. The strong firewall and two-factor authentication (2FA) significantly reduce the likelihood of exploitation, as the attacker would need to bypass both network-level filtering and an additional authentication factor. In CRISC methodology, risk is a function of likelihood and impact; here, the controls lower the likelihood, resulting in a Medium residual risk rating despite the high base score.

Answer

Low, because the application requires authenticated access

Answer

High, because CVSS base score is 9.0

Answer

Very high, due to the criticality of the application

Question 15

A multinational organization is implementing a risk mitigation strategy for a critical system. The business impact analysis shows that downtime costs are extremely high. Which risk response strategy is MOST appropriate for this scenario?

Accepted Answer

Risk reduction by implementing redundant systems. Given the extremely high downtime costs, the most appropriate risk response is risk reduction through implementing redundant systems. This directly addresses the critical system's availability requirement by eliminating single points of failure, thereby reducing both the likelihood and impact of downtime. Decommissioning the system (avoidance) would eliminate the business function entirely, which is typically not viable for a critical system, while insurance (transfer) only provides financial compensation after the loss, not preventing the operational impact of downtime.

Answer

Risk avoidance by decommissioning the system

Answer

Risk transfer through cyber insurance

Answer

Risk acceptance because mitigation is too costly

Question 16

Which THREE of the following are key components of an effective risk treatment plan?

Accepted Answer

Assigned responsibilities. Assigned responsibilities are a key component of an effective risk treatment plan because they ensure accountability for implementing specific risk mitigation actions. Without clear ownership, tasks may be delayed or overlooked, undermining the plan's execution. This aligns with the CRISC framework's emphasis on defining roles to operationalize risk response.

Answer

The risk owner's signature

Answer

A detailed budget

Question 17

A retail company recently deployed a point-of-sale (POS) system that processes credit card transactions. The system is connected to the corporate network and transmits transaction data to a payment processor over the internet. During a risk assessment, the IT risk manager identifies that the POS system is vulnerable to malware injection via unvalidated input from barcode scanners. Which of the following is the MOST appropriate risk mitigation strategy?

Accepted Answer

Deploy application-layer input validation and sanitization for barcode scanner inputs.. Option D is the most appropriate risk mitigation strategy because the vulnerability is specifically malware injection via unvalidated input from barcode scanners. Application-layer input validation and sanitization directly addresses the root cause by ensuring that only expected, safe data is processed by the POS system, preventing injection attacks at the point of entry.

Answer

Encrypt all transaction data in transit using TLS 1.2.

Answer

Install a next-generation firewall at the internet boundary.

Answer

Implement network segmentation to isolate the POS system from the corporate network.

Question 18

A company is implementing a new cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) system. The IT risk manager needs to assess the risk of data exfiltration by a malicious insider at the cloud provider. Which risk assessment approach is most appropriate for this scenario?

Accepted Answer

Scenario analysis with a focus on likelihood and impact. Scenario analysis is most appropriate because the risk of data exfiltration by a malicious insider at the cloud provider is a complex, low-frequency, high-impact threat that is difficult to quantify with historical data. This approach allows the risk manager to systematically evaluate specific attack paths (e.g., an insider with database access copying customer records) by focusing on likelihood and impact, which aligns with the qualitative nature of insider threat assessment in a cloud environment.

Answer

Quantitative risk assessment using ALE and SLE

Answer

Application of the COSO ERM framework

Answer

Control self-assessment (CSA) against ISO 27001

Question 19

A multinational corporation has deployed a centralized log management system that collects security events from all subsidiaries. The CRO notices that the number of critical alerts from the Asia-Pacific region has dropped significantly over the past week. Upon investigation, the log source status shows that 30% of the devices in that region have not sent any logs in 48 hours. What is the MOST likely cause?

Accepted Answer

A configuration change was made to the log forwarder agent on the affected devices, causing it to stop sending logs.. Option C is correct because a configuration change to the log forwarder agent (e.g., syslog-ng, rsyslog, or a proprietary agent) is the most plausible cause for a sudden, sustained drop in log volume from a subset of devices. Unlike network segmentation (Option D), which would affect all traffic, or a DDoS (Option B), which would cause intermittent or total loss, an agent misconfiguration selectively stops log generation while the device remains online. The 48-hour window and 30% device impact align with a staged or partial rollout of a faulty agent configuration.

Answer

The security team applied a new log suppression rule that filters out low-severity events.

Answer

The region experienced a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack that overwhelmed the log collection infrastructure.

Answer

The network team recently implemented a segmentation change that blocked log traffic from those devices.

Question 20

Which TWO of the following are key risk identification techniques used to identify threats and vulnerabilities in IT systems? (Select exactly 2.)

Accepted Answer

Vulnerability scanning. Vulnerability scanning is a key risk identification technique that systematically probes IT systems for known vulnerabilities, such as unpatched software or misconfigurations, using tools like Nessus or OpenVAS. It directly identifies weaknesses that could be exploited by threats, making it essential for the risk identification phase.

Answer

Risk mitigation

Answer

Risk transfer

Answer

Access control implementation