hardMultiple Choice
CRISC Practice Question: During a risk assessment, an organization…
During a risk assessment, an organization identifies that its legacy ERP system has a high likelihood of failure during peak transaction periods. The system supports critical financial operations. The risk owner proposes to upgrade the system, but the project would take 18 months and require significant capital investment. The CEO questions whether the risk can be reduced to an acceptable level more quickly. Which of the following is the MOST appropriate immediate risk response?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates confuse a long-term strategic solution (system upgrade or cloud migration) with an immediate tactical response, failing to recognize that the question explicitly asks for the 'most appropriate immediate risk response' that can be deployed quickly.
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
✓
Implement enhanced monitoring and manual fallback procedures.
Enhanced monitoring and manual fallback procedures directly address the immediate risk of system failure during peak periods by providing early detection and a contingency plan to maintain critical financial operations. This response can be implemented quickly without the 18-month timeline and capital investment required for a full system upgrade, aligning with the CEO's request for a faster risk reduction.
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 enhanced monitoring and manual fallback procedures.
Why this is correct
Enhanced monitoring plus manual fallback procedures reduce the impact of peak-period ERP failure immediately, without the 18-month upgrade. This satisfies the CEO's demand for a faster response by lowering residual risk to an acceptable level while the longer remediation is planned.
- ✗
Increase cyber insurance coverage.
Why it's wrong here
Insurance transfers the financial consequence of a failure but leaves the high-likelihood outage itself untouched, so critical financial operations still halt during peak periods. It tempts because cover can be bound quickly, but it is the right response only when the risk is low-likelihood and the objective is loss financing.
- ✗
Accept the risk and budget for potential losses.
Why it's wrong here
Acceptance leaves the high-likelihood peak-period failure unmitigated, so critical financial operations remain exposed; budgeting for losses does not reduce the risk to an acceptable level. It tempts when treatment cost exceeds impact, but acceptance suits low-likelihood or low-impact risks, not this one.
- ✗
Outsource the ERP hosting to a cloud provider.
Why it's wrong here
Outsourcing hosting does not remediate the legacy ERP application's peak-period failure mode; the same code runs on the provider's infrastructure, and migration itself takes months. It tempts as a fast capacity fix, but it would be correct where the deficiency is data-centre resilience rather than application scalability.
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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.