CISM Information Security Programme Practice Question
A CISO is preparing the security budget for the next fiscal year. The current IT budget is $10 million. For a mature security program, what is the recommended security budget range?
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
✓
$1 million to $1.5 million
Best practice for a mature security program is to allocate 10-15% of the IT budget to security. For a $10 million IT budget, that is $1 million to $1.5 million.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
$500,000 to $750,000
Why it's wrong here
This is 5-7.5%, below the recommended range for mature programs.
- ✓
$1 million to $1.5 million
Why this is correct
Correct. 10-15% of $10 million is $1-1.5 million.
- ✗
$100,000 to $200,000
Why it's wrong here
This is only 1-2%, far too low for a mature program.
- ✗
$2 million to $3 million
Why it's wrong here
This is 20-30%, which is too high for typical benchmarks.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This CISM practice question is part of Courseiva's free ISACA 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 CISM exam.