hardMultiple Choice
CRISC Practice Question: During a risk assessment, the risk manager finds…
During a risk assessment, the risk manager finds that a critical application has a single point of failure in its network path. The application's availability requirement is 99.99%. The current design achieves only 99.9% uptime. Which risk metric should be calculated first?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is that candidates rush to calculate financial metrics (ALE, SLE, EF) without first establishing the foundational risk gap, which is the prerequisite for any meaningful quantitative risk analysis.
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
✓
Risk gap between required and current service level.
The risk manager must first quantify the risk gap between the required 99.99% availability (approximately 52.56 minutes of downtime per year) and the current 99.9% availability (approximately 525.6 minutes per year). This gap of 473.04 minutes per year establishes the magnitude of the risk exposure before any financial calculations (ALE, SLE, EF) can be performed, as those metrics depend on knowing the actual downtime that needs to be costed.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Annualized Loss Expectancy (ALE) based on potential downtime cost.
Why it's wrong here
ALE needs SLE and annualized rate of occurrence, so it depends on metrics not yet derived; the stem gives no asset value or outage frequency. ALE is correct once per-incident loss and expected annual occurrences are known. Here the availability gap itself must be quantified first.
- ✓
Risk gap between required and current service level.
Why this is correct
The gap quantifies the shortfall between the 99.99% availability requirement and the 99.9% design, expressing exposure in service-level terms. Calculating it first frames how much improvement the single point of failure must deliver before treatment options are assessed.
- ✗
Exposure factor (EF) representing the percentage of loss.
Why it's wrong here
Exposure factor quantifies the proportion of an asset lost per incident, which is irrelevant to an availability gap measured in uptime percentage. EF belongs in quantitative loss estimation once a threat event and asset value are defined. The stem asks which metric addresses the shortfall against the 99.99% requirement.
- ✗
Single loss expectancy (SLE) for a single outage event.
Why it's wrong here
SLE requires an asset value and an exposure factor before it can be computed; neither is established in the stem, which concerns an availability shortfall. SLE would be the right starting point when costing a defined outage against a valued asset, not when comparing achieved uptime with a stated availability requirement.
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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.