200-201 Security Policies and Procedures Practice Question
Which role in the incident response process is primarily responsible for determining the business impact of an incident and making strategic decisions?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
CISO
The CISO is the decision-maker who evaluates business impact and approves major actions.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
HR
Why it's wrong here
HR handles personnel matters such as employee misconduct or policy breaches, not incident business-impact assessment or strategic response decisions. It is tempting because HR does engage during incidents involving insider threats or staff communications, but the strategic impact and decision-making role belongs to the incident commander or management lead.
- ✗
Legal counsel
Why it's wrong here
Legal counsel assesses regulatory, contractual and liability exposure, not business impact or strategic incident decisions. It is tempting because counsel genuinely advises on breach notification duties and privilege during incidents, but that scenario involves legal risk assessment, whereas determining business impact and directing strategy sits with incident command.
- ✗
Incident handler
Why it's wrong here
Incident handlers perform the technical investigation, containment and eradication work rather than owning business impact assessment or strategic decisions. It is tempting because handlers genuinely drive the tactical response and evidence gathering, but that scenario assumes someone else holds command authority; here the strategic and business-impact role is separate.
- ✓
CISO
Why this is correct
The CISO owns strategic incident decisions and business-impact assessment, translating technical findings into organisational risk. This role authorises containment, notification and recovery priorities, satisfying the stem's requirement for strategic decision-making authority rather than hands-on triage performed by analysts or the IR lead.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This 200-201 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Cisco certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the 200-201 exam.