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CRISC Practice Question: A financial institution is migrating its core…
A financial institution is migrating its core banking system from an on-premises data center to a public cloud infrastructure. The migration is planned in phases over 18 months. The IT risk manager is tasked with identifying risks during the transition. During the first phase, the team moves non-critical applications to the cloud. A vulnerability assessment of the cloud environment reveals that several virtual machines have default administrative credentials enabled. Additionally, the cloud security group configuration for the application tier allows inbound SSH from the entire internet (0.0.0.0/0). The risk manager also learns that the cloud provider's shared responsibility model is not fully understood by the operations team, who believe the provider is responsible for all security controls. The institution's risk appetite statement allows for moderate risk tolerance but prohibits any exposure that could lead to unauthorized access to customer financial data. Which of the following risk scenarios should the risk manager identify as the MOST critical to address immediately?
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
✓
Default credentials on virtual machines combined with unrestricted inbound SSH from the internet
The combination of default credentials on VMs and unrestricted inbound SSH from the internet (0.0.0.0/0) creates an immediate, exploitable vulnerability that could allow attackers to gain unauthorized access to the application tier. This directly violates the institution's risk appetite, which prohibits any exposure that could lead to unauthorized access to customer financial data. Option A, while a concern, is a management issue that does not present an immediate technical exploit. Option B is incorrect because the cloud provider's security controls are part of the shared responsibility model, but the provider is not responsible for the customer's misconfigurations. Option C is a longer-term risk that may arise during migration but is not as urgent as the active vulnerability in D.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The operations team's misunderstanding of the shared responsibility model
Why it's wrong here
Long-term risk but not an immediate threat; can be addressed through training.
- ✗
The cloud provider may not have adequate security controls for the institution's data
Why it's wrong here
Important but based on assumption; the actual misconfiguration is more critical.
- ✗
The phased migration introduces complexity that may cause configuration drift
Why it's wrong here
Relevant but not as critical as an exposed vulnerability.
- ✓
Default credentials on virtual machines combined with unrestricted inbound SSH from the internet
Why this is correct
Direct and immediate risk of unauthorized access to systems handling sensitive data.
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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.