CRISC Risk Response and Reporting Practice Question
During a quarterly control effectiveness test, internal audit finds that a detective control missed 15% of security incidents. The control owner claims this is within the acceptable error rate of 20%. However, the risk practitioner notes that the missed incidents were high-severity. What should the risk practitioner do?
⚠ Common exam trap
The CRISC exam often tests the misconception that meeting a quantitative KCI threshold automatically means a control is effective, without considering the qualitative severity of the incidents missed.
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
✓
Escalate the findings to senior management with a recommendation to enhance the control
The risk practitioner should escalate the findings to senior management with a recommendation to enhance the control because the detective control's failure to detect 15% of incidents, while within the 20% acceptable error rate, specifically missed high-severity incidents. High-severity incidents pose a disproportionate risk to the organization, and a control that fails to detect them is not effective in mitigating critical risks, regardless of meeting a generic threshold. Escalation ensures that management is aware of the residual risk and can authorize appropriate enhancements, such as tuning the control's detection logic or implementing additional monitoring for high-severity events.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Accept the control as effective since it is within the threshold
Why it's wrong here
The 20% threshold covers random error, not a 15% miss rate concentrated in high-severity incidents, so residual risk exceeds tolerance and the control cannot be accepted. Threshold acceptance suits low-impact failures; severity weighting changes the assessment here.
- ✓
Escalate the findings to senior management with a recommendation to enhance the control
Why this is correct
The 20% tolerance applies to aggregate error rate, not severity-weighted misses. Because the 15% failures were high-severity incidents, the control's residual risk exceeds appetite, so the practitioner must escalate to senior management with a recommendation to enhance the control.
- ✗
Implement a compensating control to cover high-severity incidents
Why it's wrong here
A compensating control adds detection alongside the failing control, leaving the root cause of the missed high-severity incidents unaddressed. It tempts because compensating controls are valid when a primary control cannot be remediated, but here the detective control itself can be tuned or replaced.
- ✗
Recommend revising the KCI threshold to include severity weighting
Why it's wrong here
Severity weighting changes how the KCI is calculated, not how the control detects incidents; the 15% miss rate on high-severity events still breaches risk appetite. It tempts because KCIs are legitimately refined when thresholds misrepresent risk, but that follows a decision to accept the control gap, not replace remediation.
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
Courseiva writes every CRISC question from scratch — 1,062 in total, each with an explanation and a wrong-answer breakdown. None are copied from real exams or dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
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.