easyMultiple Choice
CRISC Practice Question: An IT risk manager is facilitating a…
An IT risk manager is facilitating a brainstorming session to identify threats. Which technique is BEST suited for identifying a wide range of potential threats?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often choose a standard threat checklist (Option B) because it seems systematic and comprehensive, but the question asks for the technique BEST suited for identifying a wide range of potential threats, which requires creative, collaborative exploration beyond predefined lists.
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 facilitated workshop with cross-functional stakeholders
A facilitated workshop with cross-functional stakeholders is best suited for brainstorming because it leverages diverse perspectives from IT, business, legal, and operations teams to identify a wide range of threats, including emerging and non-obvious ones. This collaborative approach aligns with the CRISC emphasis on qualitative risk assessment techniques that surface unknown unknowns, which static checklists or historical data cannot capture.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Conduct a facilitated workshop with cross-functional stakeholders
Why this is correct
Cross-functional stakeholders bring varied perspectives across technology, operations, compliance and business domains, surfacing a broader threat landscape than any single group. This directly satisfies the stem's requirement for identifying a wide range of potential threats during brainstorming.
- ✗
Use a standard threat checklist
Why it's wrong here
A standard checklist constrains discussion to its predefined entries, so threats specific to this environment and newly emerging ones are never surfaced. Checklists suit routine, repeatable assessments where completeness against a known baseline matters, not open-ended identification of a wide threat range.
- ✗
Review historical incident logs
Why it's wrong here
Historical incident logs only reveal threats that have already materialised, so novel or emerging threats absent from past records are missed entirely. Log review suits confirming likelihood, validating identified risks, or feeding lessons learned into a register after threat identification is complete.
- ✗
Interview the heads of each department individually
Why it's wrong here
Individual interviews capture only each department head's own perspective, so threats outside their visibility stay hidden and no cross-functional challenge occurs. Interviews suit validating or deepening findings from a prior identification exercise, or gathering sensitive detail that group dynamics would suppress.
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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.