ISC Risk Management Practice Question
An ISSEP is assessing the risk of a system that uses 'Secrets Management' services (e.g., HashiCorp Vault). Which THREE of the following are best practices for securing the secrets themselves?
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
✓
Enforcing short-lived, dynamically generated credentials.
Secrets management relies on strong access control, secure delivery, and the ability to rotate credentials to limit the window of opportunity for attackers.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Enforcing short-lived, dynamically generated credentials.
Why this is correct
Dynamic secrets expire, limiting the impact of a potential breach.
- ✓
Enforcing the principle of least privilege for secret access.
Why this is correct
Access should be restricted to only those services that need the secret.
- ✓
Implementing robust auditing of all secret access attempts.
Why this is correct
Auditing is necessary to detect unauthorized access to credentials.
- ✗
Using a single, static password for all administrative access.
Why it's wrong here
Static, shared passwords are a high-risk practice.
- ✗
Hardcoding the master recovery key in the application source code.
Why it's wrong here
This is a critical security failure.
About these practice questions
This ISC question is part of Courseiva's 209-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed August 2026 · checked against the official (ISC)² exam blueprint
This ISC practice question is part of Courseiva's free (ISC)² 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 ISC exam.