CRISC IT Risk Assessment Practice Question
A company is considering outsourcing its data center operations to a cloud provider. Which risk treatment option is the company primarily exercising?
⚠ Common exam trap
CRISC often tests the distinction between transferring risk (contractual shift to a third party) and mitigating it (applying controls), so candidates who see 'cloud provider' and think 'security controls' incorrectly pick mitigation.
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
✓
Risk transfer
Risk transfer shifts the financial and operational impact of a risk to a third party, typically through contracts, insurance, or outsourcing arrangements. By outsourcing data center operations to a cloud provider, the company contractsually shifts responsibility for the physical, operational, and infrastructure risks (power, cooling, hardware failure, physical security) to the provider. The risk itself still exists, but the ownership of its consequences is transferred via the service agreement and SLAs.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Risk avoidance
Why it's wrong here
Avoidance means eliminating the activity that generates the risk, but the company still consumes data centre services through the provider, so the risk is transferred, not avoided. Avoidance would apply if it ceased operating or needing those services altogether.
- ✗
Risk mitigation
Why it's wrong here
Outsourcing transfers the operational risk of running data centres to the provider rather than reducing its likelihood or impact, so mitigation mislabels the treatment. Mitigation would apply if the company retained the data centres and added controls such as redundancy or hardening.
- ✓
Risk transfer
Why this is correct
Outsourcing data centre operations shifts the operational risk of hosting, power, and physical security to the cloud provider under contract. The company retains residual and reputational risk, but the primary treatment is transfer, since financial and operational consequences move to a third party.
- ✗
Risk acceptance
Why it's wrong here
Acceptance means retaining the risk without action, whereas outsourcing deliberately shifts operational responsibility and exposure to the provider. Acceptance would be the answer if the company kept its data centres and consciously tolerated the identified risk.
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JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official ISACA exam blueprint
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.