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CRISC Practice Question: Which TWO of the following are primary factors…
Which TWO of the following are primary factors that determine how often a risk assessment should be performed?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse operational constraints (budget, staff count) or reactive metrics (past incidents) with the proactive, risk-driven factors that ISACA emphasizes for determining assessment frequency, leading them to select budget or incident count instead of change rate and inherent risk.
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
✓
Rate of change in the IT environment
The rate of change in the IT environment directly impacts the risk landscape; frequent changes (e.g., new applications, infrastructure updates, cloud migrations) introduce new vulnerabilities and alter existing threat vectors, requiring more frequent assessments to ensure controls remain effective. Inherent risk level of critical assets determines priority—higher inherent risk (e.g., systems processing PII or financial transactions) demands more frequent assessments because the potential impact of exploitation is greater, aligning with the ISACA risk assessment scheduling principle.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Available risk assessment budget
Why it's wrong here
Budget may constrain but should not determine frequency; it should be risk-driven.
- ✓
Rate of change in the IT environment
Why this is correct
Higher change rate requires more frequent assessments.
- ✗
Number of IT employees
Why it's wrong here
The number of employees is not a primary factor; risk exposure is.
- ✓
Inherent risk level of critical assets
Why this is correct
High inherent risk assets may need more frequent assessments.
- ✗
Number of past security incidents
Why it's wrong here
Past incidents are not a primary factor; current risk level is.
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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.