CISM Incident Management Practice Question
During a major cybersecurity incident, the incident response team determines that the incident cannot be resolved within the maximum tolerable downtime (MTD). Which of the following actions should be taken next?
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
✓
Declare a disaster and activate the BC/DR plan
When an incident cannot be resolved within MTD, the organization should escalate to business continuity and disaster recovery activation to restore operations.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Conduct a root cause analysis
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. Root cause analysis is post-incident; immediate focus should be on restoring operations.
- ✓
Declare a disaster and activate the BC/DR plan
Why this is correct
Correct. If the incident cannot be resolved within MTD, the organization must escalate to BC/DR to ensure business continuity.
- ✗
Notify the executive sponsor and continue response efforts
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. While notification is important, the primary action is to activate BC/DR to address the MTD breach.
- ✗
Increase the number of incident responders
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. Adding more responders may not resolve the incident within MTD; BC/DR activation is needed.
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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.