CRISC Risk Response and Reporting Practice Question
A Key Control Indicator (KCI) for a critical firewall rule set shows an exception rate of 12% over the past month, exceeding the acceptable threshold of 5%. The control owner is responsible for remediation. Which action should the risk practitioner recommend FIRST?
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
✓
Conduct a root cause analysis of the exceptions
The first step in addressing an elevated KCI is to investigate the root cause of the exceptions to determine if they are due to rule misconfigurations, policy violations, or other issues before taking corrective action.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Temporarily disable the firewall rules causing exceptions
Why it's wrong here
Disabling the rules removes the control protecting the network, converting a threshold breach into unmitigated exposure. This would only be contemplated under an approved emergency change when the rules themselves are proven malicious or blocking critical traffic.
- ✗
Implement an automated rule change management process
Why it's wrong here
Automating change management addresses the process that generates exceptions, but the KCI breach needs the cause of the 12% identified before designing a fix. Automation would be recommended once analysis shows manual change handling is the driver.
- ✗
Update the KCI threshold to 12%
Why it's wrong here
Raising the threshold to 12% conceals the breach rather than remediating the failing firewall rule set, leaving the control ineffective. Thresholds exist to trigger action when performance drifts; adjusting them is valid only after a documented risk acceptance or genuine recalibration of tolerance, not to silence an alert.
- ✓
Conduct a root cause analysis of the exceptions
Why this is correct
Root cause analysis identifies why exceptions exceeded the 5% threshold before remediation is chosen. Acting on symptoms risks recurring breaches, so understanding whether the cause is rule misconfiguration, process drift or user behaviour ensures the control owner applies the correct corrective action first.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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