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CRISC Practice Question: During a risk assessment, a financial institution…
During a risk assessment, a financial institution identifies that its online banking application uses an outdated encryption protocol. The likelihood of exploitation is high, and the impact is moderate. What should the risk owner do FIRST?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is that candidates often jump to selecting a risk treatment option (like implementing a control or transferring risk) without recognizing that the risk owner must first validate the risk rating to ensure the assessment is accurate and actionable.
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
✓
Validate the risk rating with additional data
The risk owner's first responsibility is to ensure the risk assessment is accurate before deciding on a response. Validating the risk rating with additional data (option B) confirms that the high likelihood and moderate impact are correctly assessed, which is a prerequisite for selecting an appropriate treatment. Jumping to implement controls, transfer, or accept the risk without validation could lead to misallocation of resources or inadequate mitigation.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Implement a compensating control to mitigate the risk
Why it's wrong here
A compensating control leaves the vulnerable protocol in place, addressing symptoms rather than the root cause of high-likelihood exploitation. It suits legacy systems that cannot be patched immediately, but the risk owner should first assess and select the appropriate risk response.
- ✓
Validate the risk rating with additional data
Why this is correct
Before treating the high-likelihood, moderate-impact rating as final, the risk owner should confirm it against further evidence, since the assessment may rest on incomplete or stale data. Validating the rating ensures subsequent treatment decisions target the genuine exposure rather than an unverified estimate.
- ✗
Transfer the risk via cyber insurance
Why it's wrong here
Insurance compensates financial loss after an incident; it does not reduce the high likelihood of exploitation or fix the outdated protocol. Transfer suits low-likelihood, high-impact risks, whereas here the risk owner must first evaluate treatment options, including remediation.
- ✗
Accept the risk as low priority
Why it's wrong here
Acceptance with no treatment ignores a high-likelihood vulnerability in a critical banking application, exceeding typical risk tolerance. Acceptance suits risks within appetite after cost-benefit analysis; here the risk owner must first evaluate treatment options rather than default to inaction.
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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.