easyMultiple Choice
CRISC Practice Question: A risk manager is identifying risks for a new…
A risk manager is identifying risks for a new mobile payment application. The application will use end-to-end encryption. Which of the following is the BEST source of risk information for identifying potential threats?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse 'historical internal data' (Option C) or 'generic benchmarks' (Option A) as reliable for risk identification, when in fact only current, external, and sector-specific threat intelligence can identify emerging threats that bypass encryption or target the application's unique implementation.
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
✓
Threat intelligence feeds specific to the financial services sector
Threat intelligence feeds specific to the financial services sector provide real-time, contextualized information about emerging threats, attack patterns, and vulnerabilities targeting mobile payment systems. Since the application uses end-to-end encryption, the risk manager needs to identify threats that could bypass or undermine encryption (e.g., side-channel attacks, key interception, or man-in-the-middle attacks on the handshake), which generic or historical sources would not capture. This source is the best because it is current, sector-specific, and directly relevant to the technology stack.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Industry benchmark risk assessments from similar organizations
Why it's wrong here
Benchmarks from similar organisations describe generic industry threat landscapes, not the specific attack surface of this application's end-to-end encryption implementation, key management and payment flows. They are tempting because they efficiently seed a risk register when internal data is scarce, and would be correct for a first-pass baseline before architecture-specific threat modelling.
- ✓
Threat intelligence feeds specific to the financial services sector
Why this is correct
Sector-specific threat intelligence feeds describe adversaries, tactics and campaigns actively targeting financial services, so identified threats map directly to the mobile payment application's threat landscape. This gives the risk manager concrete, relevant input rather than generic vulnerability lists or internal assumptions.
- ✗
Previous internal audit reports on legacy applications
Why it's wrong here
Legacy application audits cover different architectures, data flows and threat exposure, so they miss risks introduced by mobile payment channels and end-to-end encryption. They are tempting because internal audit reports are organisation-specific and evidence-based, which suits risk identification for systems sharing the same platform and design.
- ✗
Vendor-provided security white papers for the encryption product
Why it's wrong here
Vendor white papers describe intended cryptographic design, not the threats, misuse cases or integration weaknesses specific to this deployment. They are tempting because they document the encryption product thoroughly, which suits evaluating whether a control meets a stated requirement, not identifying threats.
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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.