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ISC2 CC Practice Question: During a vulnerability scan, the security team…
During a vulnerability scan, the security team discovers a critical vulnerability on a public-facing server. According to best practices, what should the team do next?
⚠ Common exam trap
ISC2 often tests the misconception that 'critical' means 'act immediately without planning,' leading candidates to choose Option B, but the correct approach is to balance urgency with change control to avoid operational disruption.
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
✓
Schedule a maintenance window
According to vulnerability management best practices, the first step after discovering a critical vulnerability is to schedule a maintenance window to apply a patch or mitigation in a controlled manner. This minimizes service disruption and allows for testing, ensuring the fix does not introduce new issues. Immediate remediation during business hours (Option B) could cause downtime or impact users, while disabling the server (Option A) is an extreme measure reserved for active exploitation with no available patch.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Disable the server
Why it's wrong here
Disabling without business impact analysis is overly aggressive.
- ✗
Remediate immediately during business hours
Why it's wrong here
Immediate action may cause unplanned downtime.
- ✗
Inform all users
Why it's wrong here
Notifying all users is not a standard response step.
- ✓
Schedule a maintenance window
Why this is correct
Scheduling a maintenance window allows for planned and tested remediation.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Introduction to Security Principles
Key term
Vulnerability management
Vulnerability management is the continuous process of identifying, classifying, prioritizing, and remediating security weaknesses in an organization's IT environment.
Key term
Impact
Impact is the measure of the potential damage or harm that a risk event could cause to an organization's assets, operations, or reputation.
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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.