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CRISC Practice Question: A large e-commerce company uses several key risk…
A large e-commerce company uses several key risk indicators (KRIs) to monitor credit card fraud. The risk committee noticed that one KRI has been trending above the threshold for three consecutive months, yet no risk response was initiated. Which of the following is the MOST likely root cause?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is that candidates may focus on data quality or threshold settings (options A, C, D) instead of recognizing that the core issue is the failure of the automated response mechanism, which is a process/control design flaw, not a data or measurement problem.
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
✓
The risk response workflow was not triggered automatically
The most likely root cause is that the risk response workflow was not triggered automatically. In a mature risk monitoring environment, KRIs should be linked to automated workflows that initiate a response when thresholds are breached. Since the KRI has been above threshold for three consecutive months without any action, it indicates a failure in the automated triggering mechanism, not in the KRI's accuracy or the threshold's leniency.
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 KRI was not validated for accuracy
Why it's wrong here
An inaccurate KRI would misreport the metric's value, but the stem states the indicator genuinely trended above threshold, so accuracy is not the failure. Validation matters when readings are suspect; here the breach was real and simply went unanswered, pointing to escalation or ownership gaps.
- ✓
The risk response workflow was not triggered automatically
Why this is correct
A KRI breaching its threshold for three months without any response indicates the escalation path depends on manual intervention that never occurred. Automating the risk response workflow so threshold breaches trigger action directly addresses this control gap.
- ✗
The KRI threshold was set too lenient
Why it's wrong here
A lenient threshold would delay the first breach, yet the KRI did cross it for three months, so the trigger fired correctly. Threshold tuning is the right fix when indicators breach too late or too often; here the response process, not the limit, failed.
- ✗
The monitoring tool failed to capture data
Why it's wrong here
Tool failure would produce missing or absent data, contradicting the stem's premise that the KRI trended above threshold for three consecutive months. Capture integrity is the correct concern when readings are incomplete; here the data arrived and no one acted on it.
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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.