The correct answer is to conduct a detailed assessment of the vendor's business continuity and disaster recovery plans, especially regarding natural disasters. This is the priority because the vendor’s data center sits in an earthquake-prone region, and while minor security incidents have been resolved quickly, the risk of a major service disruption from a natural disaster directly threatens patient safety and data availability—core concerns in any vendor risk assessment for EHR systems. On the CRISC exam, this scenario tests your ability to distinguish between operational security incidents and catastrophic business continuity risks; the common trap is to focus on the legacy system vulnerabilities or the vendor’s reputation instead of the existential threat to uptime. Remember the memory tip: “Quake before you patch”—always prioritize BC/DR over patch management when physical disaster risk is present, because no amount of quick fixes can restore a collapsed data center.
CRISC IT Risk Identification Practice Question
This CRISC practice question tests your understanding of it risk identification. Read the scenario carefully and evaluate each option against the stated constraints before committing to an answer. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A large healthcare organization is implementing a new electronic health record (EHR) system. During the risk identification process, the risk team discovers that the EHR vendor has a history of minor security incidents but has always resolved them quickly. The vendor’s data center is located in a region prone to earthquakes. Additionally, the EHR system will integrate with several legacy systems that have known vulnerabilities. The project sponsor is keen to proceed and believes the vendor is reputable. The risk team needs to ensure all relevant risks are identified and documented. Which of the following should be the PRIORITY for the risk team?
Clue words in this question
Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.
Clue: "always"
Why it matters: Absolute qualifier. An answer using 'always' is only correct if there are genuinely no exceptions — absolute statements are often wrong in networking.
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Conduct a detailed assessment of the vendor's business continuity and disaster recovery plans, especially regarding natural disasters.
The vendor's data center is in an earthquake-prone region, and the vendor has a history of minor security incidents. This creates a significant risk of service disruption that could impact patient safety and data availability. Prioritizing a detailed assessment of the vendor's business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) plans ensures that the organization understands the vendor's ability to maintain operations and recover data in a disaster scenario, which is a fundamental risk identification activity before any mitigation or acceptance decisions.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
✓
Conduct a detailed assessment of the vendor's business continuity and disaster recovery plans, especially regarding natural disasters.
Why this is correct
BCP/DR assessment addresses the earthquake risk directly.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "always" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Request the vendor to patch the legacy system vulnerabilities before integration.
Why it's wrong here
Vendor may not have control over legacy systems.
✗
Focus on contractual indemnification clauses to transfer risk.
Why it's wrong here
Risk transfer is a treatment, not identification.
✗
Accept the residual risk after implementing basic controls.
Why it's wrong here
Acceptance without full identification is premature.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates may focus on the legacy system vulnerabilities (Option B) because they are a known technical issue, but the question specifically prioritizes the vendor's data center risk, which is a higher-level business continuity concern that could render all other controls irrelevant if the vendor's site goes offline.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
In EHR implementations, vendor BC/DR plans must align with healthcare-specific uptime requirements (e.g., HIPAA Security Rule §164.308(a)(7)(ii)(A) for contingency planning) and recovery point objectives (RPO) and recovery time objectives (RTO) that ensure patient data is not lost and systems are restored within clinical tolerances. A vendor's history of minor security incidents, while resolved quickly, may indicate weak preventive controls that could be exacerbated by a natural disaster, making a deep dive into their failover mechanisms, data replication strategies, and third-party audit reports (e.g., SOC 2 Type II) essential.
KKey Concepts to Remember
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
→Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
→Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A small business has 20 workstations on the 192.168.1.0/24 network and one public IP from its ISP. The router uses PAT (NAT overload) so all 20 devices share one public address using different source ports. NAT questions test whether you understand the four address terms and which direction each translation applies.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
IT Risk Identification — This question tests IT Risk Identification — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Conduct a detailed assessment of the vendor's business continuity and disaster recovery plans, especially regarding natural disasters. — The vendor's data center is in an earthquake-prone region, and the vendor has a history of minor security incidents. This creates a significant risk of service disruption that could impact patient safety and data availability. Prioritizing a detailed assessment of the vendor's business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) plans ensures that the organization understands the vendor's ability to maintain operations and recover data in a disaster scenario, which is a fundamental risk identification activity before any mitigation or acceptance decisions.
What should I do if I get this CRISC question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Are there clue words in this question I should notice?
Yes — watch for: "always". Absolute qualifier. An answer using 'always' is only correct if there are genuinely no exceptions — absolute statements are often wrong in networking.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Question Discussion
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