ISC2 CC Security Principles Practice Question
A hospital's compliance officer is mapping controls for a new patient portal. The legal team wants documented assurance that a clinician cannot later deny having approved a medication order submitted through the portal. Which security principle is the legal team most directly requesting?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is choosing integrity because the order record must remain unchanged, when the actual requirement is proving which clinician performed the action.
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
✓
Non-repudiation
The legal team needs proof of who performed an action so it cannot be denied later. That is non-repudiation, usually achieved with digital signatures, strong authentication, and tamper-evident audit logging tied to individual identities. Integrity protects against unauthorized changes, confidentiality protects against disclosure, and availability protects against loss of access; none of these establishes undeniable authorship of the medication order.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Integrity
Why it's wrong here
Integrity ensures data is not altered improperly, which would prevent an order from being changed after submission. However, the legal team's concern is not that the order was tampered with; it is that the clinician could deny submitting it. Integrity controls like checksums or digital signatures can support non-repudiation, but integrity alone does not prove who performed the action.
- ✗
Availability
Why it's wrong here
Availability ensures the portal and patient records are accessible when clinicians need them. It addresses uptime, redundancy, and disaster recovery, none of which prove authorship of an order. A highly available portal could still lack the cryptographic evidence needed to stop a clinician from repudiating a submitted medication approval.
- ✓
Non-repudiation
Why this is correct
Non-repudiation provides irrefutable evidence that a specific identity performed a specific action, so the clinician cannot credibly deny approving the order. Digital signatures and tamper-evident audit logs bound to the clinician's authenticated identity deliver this proof. The legal team wants documented assurance of authorship and approval, which is precisely what non-repudiation supplies in a dispute.
- ✗
Confidentiality
Why it's wrong here
Confidentiality restricts access to patient data so only authorized parties can view it. While critical in healthcare under HIPAA, it does not establish who approved a medication order. Encrypting the portal or limiting access would protect privacy but would not prevent a clinician from later denying that they authorized a specific order.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Authentication and Authorization Methods
Key term
Non-repudiation
Non-repudiation is a security principle that ensures a party in a digital transaction cannot deny their involvement or the authenticity of their digital signature.
Key term
Authentication
Authentication is the process of verifying that someone or something is who or what it claims to be before granting access to a system or resource.
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JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official ISC2 exam blueprint
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.