mediumMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped
CAS-004 Practice Question: A company's data classification policy labels all…
A company's data classification policy labels all financial data as 'Confidential.' An employee accidentally emails a spreadsheet containing customer payment information to an unauthorized external party. Which type of control failure occurred?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates confuse the existence of a policy (administrative control) with the technical enforcement of that policy, leading them to incorrectly select 'Administrative control failure' when the real issue is the lack of a preventive technical control.
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
✓
Preventive control failure
A preventive control failure occurred because the organization lacked a technical safeguard—such as Data Loss Prevention (DLP) rules, email content filtering, or mandatory access controls—to block the outbound transmission of confidential financial data. Preventive controls are designed to stop unauthorized actions before they happen, and the absence of such a mechanism allowed the accidental email to be sent. The failure is not in detection or correction, but in the inability to prevent the data exfiltration at the point of transmission.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Preventive control failure
Why this is correct
A DLP solution should have prevented the email
- ✗
Corrective control failure
Why it's wrong here
Corrective controls activate after an incident
- ✗
Administrative control failure
Why it's wrong here
Policy existed but was not enforced
- ✗
Detective control failure
Why it's wrong here
Detection occurs after the event
Quick reference
Access Control Model Comparison
| Model | Acronym | Who Controls Access? | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Discretionary Access Control | DAC | Resource owner | Small teams, file shares |
| Mandatory Access Control | MAC | System / security labels | Classified govt / military |
| Role-Based Access Control | RBAC | Administrator (via roles) | Enterprise environments |
| Attribute-Based Access Control | ABAC | Policy engine (user + resource attributes) | Fine-grained, dynamic policies |
| Rule-Based Access Control | RuBAC | System rules / ACLs | Firewall rules, network ACLs |
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
This CAS-005 question is part of Courseiva's 968-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This CAS-005 practice question is part of Courseiva's free CompTIA 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 CAS-005 exam.