ISC2 CC Security Principles Practice Question
A company decides to accept the risk of using a legacy system because the cost of replacing it exceeds potential losses. This is an example of:
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 acceptance
Risk acceptance means acknowledging the risk and not taking further action.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
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Risk avoidance
Why it's wrong here
Risk avoidance eliminates the activity or system entirely, so it cannot describe accepting a legacy system and its exposure. It is tempting because avoidance is a valid risk treatment for high-impact threats where no compensating control exists, such as decommissioning an unsupported server rather than tolerating its vulnerabilities.
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Risk acceptance
Why this is correct
Accepting the residual exposure because remediation cost outweighs potential loss is risk acceptance — the organisation acknowledges the threat and deliberately retains it. This differs from mitigation, transfer or avoidance, which alter or shift the risk instead.
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Risk transfer
Why it's wrong here
Transfer shifts risk to a third party, typically via insurance or contract. It tempts because transferring risk is common for legacy-system exposure, but no third party assumes the loss here — the company retains it.
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Risk mitigation
Why it's wrong here
Mitigation reduces risk likelihood or impact through controls; accepting the risk and its losses is not mitigation. It tempts because mitigation is the usual response to identified risk, but here no control is applied — the loss is simply borne.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Risk Management and Security Controls
Key term
Risk acceptance
Risk acceptance is a risk management strategy where an organization acknowledges a potential risk but decides to tolerate it without taking active measures to reduce or eliminate it.
Key term
Risk
Risk is the possibility that an event or action will negatively affect an organization's ability to achieve its goals, often measured in terms of likelihood and impact.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This CC practice question is part of Courseiva's free ISC2 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 CC exam.