hardMultiple Choice
ISC2 CC Practice Question: A multinational corporation has a policy that all…
A multinational corporation has a policy that all sensitive emails must be digitally signed and encrypted. However, during a recent internal audit, it was discovered that many employees were not using digital signatures because the process was cumbersome. As a result, the company could not prove that certain emails were actually sent by the claimed sender. The security team needs to improve compliance without sacrificing security. Which of the following is the best approach?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap is assuming that policy, training, or weaker crypto will fix a compliance gap — the exam expects you to recognize that reducing user friction is the only option that improves compliance without degrading security.
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
✓
Integrate the signing process seamlessly into the email client to reduce friction.
Integrating signing seamlessly into the email client removes the friction that caused employees to skip digital signatures, directly addressing the root cause of non-compliance while preserving the cryptographic guarantees of signing and encryption. Usability improvements that lower the effort barrier are the most effective way to raise compliance without weakening security controls. This keeps certificates and encryption strength intact while making the secure path the default path.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Implement a mandatory training program emphasizing the importance of digital signatures.
Why it's wrong here
Training addresses employee behaviour but leaves the cumbersome manual signing workflow intact, so the audit gap persists. It is tempting because awareness campaigns suit policy-adherence problems generally, yet here the stem demands a technical control that signs automatically without per-message user effort.
- ✗
Reduce the encryption strength to speed up the signing process.
Why it's wrong here
Weakening encryption does not address the cumbersome signing workflow, and it degrades the confidentiality the policy requires while still leaving senders unproven. Reducing cipher strength is tempting as a performance shortcut, but the actual fix is automating signing and encryption through client policy.
- ✓
Integrate the signing process seamlessly into the email client to reduce friction.
Why this is correct
Embedding signing directly into the email client removes the manual steps that caused employees to skip it, so signatures are applied by default. This restores non-repudiation, proving the claimed sender actually sent each message, without weakening the cryptography itself.
- ✗
Allow employees to use personal signing certificates.
Why it's wrong here
Personal certificates place trust outside the organisation's managed PKI, so the corporation cannot verify sender identity or revoke credentials, defeating the audit requirement. It is tempting as a low-cost convenience fix, but personal certificates suit individual, non-corporate signing where no central trust validation is needed.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Security Governance and Compliance
Key term
General Data Protection Regulation
A European Union law that gives individuals control over their personal data and sets strict rules for how organizations collect, store, and process that data.
Key term
Policy
A policy is a set of rules or guidelines that defines how an organization manages, secures, and operates its IT systems and services.
About these practice questions
One of 989 original CC practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
Same concept, more angles
1 more way this is tested on CC
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. A security engineer is designing a system that must ensure that any changes to a configuration file are logged with the identity of the person who made the change. Which principle is being implemented?
hard- ✓ A.Accountability
- B.Non-repudiation
- C.Confidentiality
- D.Integrity
Why A: Accountability means that every action can be traced back to a specific identity, so a person can be held responsible for their changes. Logging configuration changes with the identity of the person who made them is the textbook implementation of accountability — it links actions to actors.
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.