CRISC Risk Response and Mitigation Practice Question
A bank implements a new transaction monitoring system to detect fraudulent activities. After six months, the system has a high false positive rate, causing analysts to miss real threats. Which of the following is the BEST way to address this risk?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to choose D (hire more analysts) because it seems like a direct solution to alert overload, but it fails to address the system's inefficiency and is not a sustainable risk response per CRISC principles.
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
✓
Tune the system to reduce false positives
B is correct because tuning the system involves adjusting detection thresholds, rules, or machine learning models to reduce false positives while maintaining sensitivity to actual fraud. This directly addresses the root cause—poorly calibrated detection logic—without sacrificing the system's primary function or incurring unsustainable costs.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Accept the false positives as a cost of doing business
Why it's wrong here
Accepting false positives leaves the detection gap unaddressed: analysts continue missing genuine threats, so the risk remains untreated. It is tempting because risk acceptance is legitimate when exposure falls within the bank's stated tolerance and no cost-effective mitigation exists. Here the stem shows material missed fraud, so acceptance contradicts the required treatment.
- ✓
Tune the system to reduce false positives
Why this is correct
Tuning thresholds and rules reduces false positives, restoring analyst capacity to investigate genuine alerts. This addresses the stated risk that excessive false positives cause real threats to be missed, rather than replacing or ignoring the monitoring system.
- ✗
Remove the monitoring system to focus on other controls
Why it's wrong here
Removing the system eliminates detection capability entirely, leaving fraudulent transactions unmonitored and the underlying risk untreated. It is tempting because decommissioning a noisy control reduces analyst workload and frees resources, which suits scenarios where a control is genuinely redundant or duplicated by another compensating control. Here, tuning detection rules addresses false positives without discarding coverage.
- ✗
Hire additional analysts to review all alerts
Why it's wrong here
Adding analysts scales review capacity but leaves the flawed detection logic generating the same volume of false positives, so missed threats continue. Extra staffing suits genuine volume growth, not a tuning problem where alert precision itself must improve.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This CRISC 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 CRISC exam.