CISM Incident Management Practice Question
Which incident severity level requires executive notification and 24/7 response, and has major business impact?
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
✓
P1 - Critical
P1 (Critical) incidents have major business impact, require executive notification, and demand a 24/7 response effort.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
P3 - Medium
Why it's wrong here
P3 – Medium covers incidents with limited business impact, handled during business hours without executive escalation. It is tempting because P3 suits widespread but contained issues, such as a single non-critical application degradation affecting one department, where workarounds exist and service-level targets remain achievable without invoking 24/7 response or notifying leadership.
- ✓
P1 - Critical
Why this is correct
P1 – Critical incidents demand immediate 24/7 response and executive notification because they cause major business impact, such as widespread service outage or data breach. This severity tier exists precisely to trigger escalation to leadership, satisfying the stem's requirement for executive involvement alongside continuous remediation until service restoration.
- ✗
P2 - High
Why it's wrong here
P2 covers high-impact incidents handled during business hours with management escalation, not executive notification around the clock; it is tempting because "High" sounds severe, and would be correct for significant service degradation that does not threaten the whole organisation.
- ✗
P4 - Low
Why it's wrong here
P4 covers low-impact incidents logged and resolved during normal hours with no executive involvement; it is tempting as the obvious opposite of the required severity, and would be correct for cosmetic faults or single-user issues with negligible business effect.
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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.