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CISM Practice Question: An organization's incident response plan includes…
An organization's incident response plan includes a call tree. During an incident, the primary contact is unreachable. What should happen?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to think waiting or escalating is safer, but the core of incident management is to maintain the notification chain without delay, so moving to the next person in the call tree is the correct action per standard incident response frameworks.
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
✓
Move to the next person in the call tree
A call tree is designed to ensure rapid, sequential notification during an incident. If the primary contact is unreachable, the plan should automatically move to the next person in the call tree to maintain the speed and reliability of the notification process. This avoids delays that could compromise incident response SLAs.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Escalate to senior management
Why it's wrong here
Escalation is needed only if alternates are also unreachable.
- ✗
Use a different communication method like email
Why it's wrong here
Email may not be timely; call tree escalation is more reliable.
- ✗
Wait for the primary to become available
Why it's wrong here
Waiting delays response and may worsen the incident.
- ✓
Move to the next person in the call tree
Why this is correct
Correct: The call tree is designed with alternates.
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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.