CISM Incident Management Practice Question
Which post-incident activity involves identifying the technical cause, the process failure that allowed it, and the management/governance failure that permitted the process failure?
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
✓
Root cause analysis (RCA)
Root cause analysis (RCA) digs into multiple layers to find underlying issues, often using techniques like 5 Whys or fishbone diagrams.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
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Lessons learned meeting
Why it's wrong here
A lessons learned meeting reviews what happened and captures improvement actions, but it does not systematically dissect the technical, process and governance layers of causation. It is tempting because it is the recognised post-incident review forum, yet root cause analysis is the activity that traces those three failure levels.
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Incident closure report
Why it's wrong here
An incident closure report records resolution and sign-off, not causal analysis across technical, process and governance layers. It is tempting because closure documentation summarises the incident, but root cause analysis is the activity that traces the technical fault through process and governance failures.
- ✓
Root cause analysis (RCA)
Why this is correct
RCA uniquely spans all three layers named in the stem: technical cause, the process failure enabling it, and the governance failure permitting that process weakness. Other post-incident activities, such as lessons learned meetings or metric reporting, address only one layer.
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Threat intelligence sharing
Why it's wrong here
Threat intelligence sharing distributes indicators and adversary context to other organisations; it does not examine internal causation. It is tempting because it is a post-incident security activity, but it addresses external awareness, not the technical, process and governance failures that root cause analysis must identify.
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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.