easyMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped
How to Improve Detective Control Efficiency with High False Positives
A risk analyst is reviewing control monitoring results and notices that a detective control has a high false positive rate. What is the BEST action to improve the control's efficiency?
Quick Answer
The answer is to adjust the control’s threshold or criteria. This is the best action because a high false positive rate in a detective control indicates that the control is too sensitive, triggering alerts for benign events that do not represent actual risk. By recalibrating the threshold—such as raising the number of failed login attempts before an alert fires—you reduce noise while preserving the control’s ability to catch genuine incidents, directly improving detective control efficiency with high false positives. On the CRISC exam, this question tests your understanding of control optimization versus redesign; a common trap is choosing to transform the control type, but that is a costly design change, not a tuning action. Another trap is adding more rules, which often increases false positives. Remember the mnemonic “Tune, Don’t Transform” to recall that adjusting thresholds is the first, most efficient step for reducing false positives without sacrificing detection.
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse 'efficiency' with 'frequency' or 'control type,' mistakenly thinking more monitoring or converting to preventive control will solve the false positive issue, when the correct action is to tune the control's sensitivity.
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
✓
Adjust the control's threshold or criteria
A high false positive rate in a detective control indicates that the control's threshold or criteria are too sensitive, triggering alerts for benign events. Adjusting the threshold (e.g., increasing the baseline or fine-tuning anomaly detection parameters) directly reduces false positives, improving efficiency without sacrificing detection capability. This is the most targeted action to optimize signal-to-noise ratio.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Adjust the control's threshold or criteria
Why this is correct
Fine-tuning thresholds can reduce false positives while keeping detection effective.
- ✗
Accept the false positives as operational tolerance
Why it's wrong here
Acceptance does not improve efficiency and may lead to analyst fatigue.
- ✗
Increase the monitoring frequency
Why it's wrong here
More frequent monitoring does not reduce false positives and may increase them.
- ✗
Convert the control to a preventive control
Why it's wrong here
Changing control type is a major redesign and not a direct fix for false positives.
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Same concept, more angles
1 more way this is tested on CRISC
These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. An organization has implemented a continuous monitoring solution for its critical applications. The IT team reports that the monitoring tool generates a high volume of false positives. What is the BEST course of action?
medium- ✓ A.Refine the monitoring rules and thresholds to reduce false positives.
- B.Disable the monitoring for applications that generate the most false positives.
- C.Increase the size of the monitoring team to handle the alerts.
- D.Implement additional detective controls for all false positive alerts.
Why A: Refining monitoring rules and thresholds directly addresses the root cause of false positives by tuning the detection logic to better match actual risk conditions. This aligns with the CRISC principle of optimizing control efficiency rather than accepting or compensating for excessive noise. For example, adjusting anomaly detection thresholds in a SIEM like Splunk or QRadar can reduce alert volume without sacrificing coverage of genuine threats.
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.