ISC2 CC Access Controls Concepts Practice Question
A payroll clerk changes roles within the same company, moving from the finance department to the human resources department. The security team discovers months later that the clerk still retains all the finance application permissions from the previous position in addition to the new HR permissions. Which access control weakness does this situation illustrate?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates confuse accumulated stale permissions with a deliberately designed separation of duties control.
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
✓
Privilege creep caused by failing to remove access rights when job responsibilities change.
When employees change roles, their previous entitlements must be revoked so that access always matches current duties. Retaining finance permissions after moving to HR creates privilege creep, a gradual accumulation of rights that violates least privilege and expands the attack surface. Periodic access reviews and prompt deprovisioning during transfers are the standard controls that prevent this situation.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
A brute-force vulnerability, because the clerk's account retained credentials that could be attacked repeatedly.
Why it's wrong here
Brute force is an attack that repeatedly guesses credentials to gain access, and it is mitigated with lockout thresholds and strong passwords. Nothing in the scenario suggests credential guessing. The clerk legitimately holds excessive permissions, which is an entitlement management issue rather than an authentication attack.
- ✓
Privilege creep caused by failing to remove access rights when job responsibilities change.
Why this is correct
Privilege creep occurs when a user accumulates access rights over time as roles change and old entitlements are never revoked. The clerk's finance permissions should have been removed when the transfer occurred. The residual rights create unnecessary exposure and violate least privilege, making this the accurate description of the weakness.
- ✗
An implicit deny failure, because the access control system did not block the finance permissions by default.
Why it's wrong here
Implicit deny means that anything not explicitly permitted is denied, and it governs how rules are evaluated, not how existing grants are cleaned up. The finance permissions were explicitly assigned at some point, so implicit deny would not revoke them. The problem is administrative: no one removed the rights when the clerk changed positions.
- ✗
A separation of duties conflict, because one person now holds finance and HR access simultaneously.
Why it's wrong here
Separation of duties concerns dividing a sensitive task among multiple people so no single individual can complete a fraudulent transaction alone. The scenario describes stale permissions from a role change, not a deliberate splitting of duties. While excess access is a concern, the defining characteristic here is accumulation over time rather than an incompatible task pairing.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Access Control Fundamentals
Key term
Access control
Access control is the security practice of determining who or what is allowed to view, use, or enter a resource, and under what conditions.
Key term
Least privilege
Least privilege is a security principle that means giving users, systems, or programs only the minimum permissions they need to do their job and nothing more.
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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.