CRISC Risk Response and Reporting Practice Question
A Key Control Indicator (KCI) for a firewall rule review process shows an exception rate of 15% for the past quarter, exceeding the acceptable threshold of 10%. What is the most appropriate immediate action for the control owner?
⚠ Common exam trap
ISACA often tests the misconception that exceeding a KCI threshold automatically requires escalation or control replacement, when in fact the immediate step is always root cause analysis to determine if the threshold breach is a temporary anomaly or a systemic issue.
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
✓
Investigate the root cause of the high exception rate
A KCI exception rate exceeding the threshold indicates a process failure, not necessarily a control failure. The control owner must first perform root cause analysis to determine whether the exceptions are due to misconfigured rules, policy violations, or environmental changes before taking corrective action. This aligns with the CRISC principle that control owners are responsible for monitoring and improving control effectiveness through investigation.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Investigate the root cause of the high exception rate
Why this is correct
Root cause analysis is the first step to address the issue.
- ✗
Increase the acceptable threshold to 20%
Why it's wrong here
Adjusting threshold without analysis is not appropriate.
- ✗
Replace the control with a different one
Why it's wrong here
Replacing the control without investigation is premature.
- ✗
Escalate to the board immediately
Why it's wrong here
Escalation should occur after analysis and if risk is significant.
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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.