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CISA Practice Question: An IT auditor is reviewing the system development…
An IT auditor is reviewing the system development life cycle (SDLC) process for a critical application. Which of the following findings would be of MOST concern?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is that candidates may dismiss local development environments or monthly test data refreshes as risky, while overlooking the critical segregation of duties violation inherent in granting developers direct production database access.
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
✓
Developers have production database access
Developers having direct production database access violates the principle of segregation of duties and poses a significant risk of unauthorized data modification, deletion, or exfiltration. In a well-controlled SDLC, production access should be restricted to operations or DBA teams, with changes promoted through automated deployment pipelines. This finding directly undermines data integrity and confidentiality controls.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Test data is refreshed from production monthly
Why it's wrong here
Monthly refresh of test data from production is normal and, with masking applied, supports realistic testing. The genuine concern is unmasked production data exposing sensitive records, or absent authorisation for the refresh, not the refresh cadence itself.
- ✗
Developers use local development environments
Why it's wrong here
Local development environments are standard practise and pose no inherent SDLC risk provided code is committed to version control and promoted through controlled pipelines. The concern lies with missing segregation of duties or absent change approval, not where developers write code.
- ✓
Developers have production database access
Why this is correct
Direct production database access lets developers bypass change control, segregation of duties and testing, so unauthorised or untested changes can corrupt or expose critical data. This violates the separation between development and production environments that SDLC controls are designed to enforce.
- ✗
Code reviews are performed by senior developers
Why it's wrong here
Code reviews by senior developers satisfy the SDLC review control, so this finding presents no deficiency. It is tempting because peer review is a genuine segregation-of-duties mechanism, and would be the correct answer if the stem asked which practice strengthens change control or reduces defect risk during development.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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