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CISM Practice Question: Has an incident response plan that designates a…
An organization has an incident response plan that designates a primary and alternate incident response team. During a simulated ransomware attack, the primary team is unavailable. What should the alternate team do FIRST?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse 'activating the plan' with 'executing the plan immediately,' but CISM emphasizes that assessment is a mandatory first step before any plan activation to ensure the response is appropriate for the specific incident.
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
✓
Assess the situation and then activate the plan.
The alternate team must first assess the situation to understand the scope, impact, and validity of the ransomware attack before activating the plan. This aligns with the NIST SP 800-61 incident response lifecycle, where detection and analysis precede containment, eradication, and recovery. Jumping directly to execution without assessment could lead to inappropriate response actions, such as isolating systems that are not affected or failing to preserve critical forensic evidence.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Contact the primary team members for instructions.
Why it's wrong here
The primary team is unavailable, so they must act independently.
- ✗
Declare a disaster and escalate to senior management.
Why it's wrong here
Escalation may be premature without initial assessment.
- ✗
Execute the incident response plan as documented.
Why it's wrong here
Without assessment, they may not have the context to execute effectively.
- ✓
Assess the situation and then activate the plan.
Why this is correct
Assessment first ensures appropriate response based on current conditions.
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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.