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CISM Practice Question: During incident response, a team discovers that a…
During incident response, a team discovers that a phishing email successfully compromised a user's credentials. Which containment strategy would BEST limit further damage?
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
✓
Disable the user account
Disabling the user account immediately stops any ongoing misuse of the compromised credentials, preventing the attacker from accessing additional resources. Option A is correct.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Disable the user account
Why this is correct
Disabling the account effectively blocks the attacker's current access and prevents further actions using that identity.
- ✗
Restore the user's system from a backup
Why it's wrong here
Restoration is a recovery step and does not immediately contain the active threat; the attacker still has the credentials.
- ✗
Block the sender's IP address at the firewall
Why it's wrong here
Blocking the sender's IP is reactive and may not stop the attacker if they use different IPs; it does not address the compromised credentials.
- ✗
Change all user passwords
Why it's wrong here
While changing the compromised user's password is good, changing all passwords is inefficient and may not be necessary; disabling the account is faster.
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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.