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Question 161:
During an audit of a disaster recovery plan, an IS auditor discovers that the organization has not tested its recovery procedures in over two years. What should be the auditor’s PRIMARY concern?
A) The organization cannot verify whether recovery procedures remain effective given changes to systems, personnel, and infrastructure, creating risk that recovery will fail during actual disasters
B) The disaster recovery documentation might have minor formatting issues
C) Testing requires temporary service disruptions
D) Recovery time objectives may need minor adjustments
Answer: A
Explanation:
The primary concern with untested disaster recovery procedures is the inability to validate whether the organization can actually recover from disasters when needed. IT environments constantly evolve through system upgrades, application changes, infrastructure modifications, and personnel turnover. Each change potentially invalidates portions of the recovery plan, creating gaps between documented procedures and actual requirements.
Without regular testing, these gaps remain undetected until actual disasters occur, when discovery comes too late to prevent business disruption. Recovery procedures written two years ago may no longer reflect current system configurations, network topologies, or application dependencies. Staff members who developed the original procedures may have left, taking critical knowledge with them, while new personnel lack familiarity with recovery execution.
Testing reveals practical issues invisible in documentation reviews, such as insufficient network bandwidth for current data volumes, missing dependencies between systems requiring specific recovery sequencing, or changed application startup procedures. These operational realities only surface through actual execution, not theoretical analysis.
The ultimate risk is recovery failure during actual disasters, causing extended outages that result in revenue loss, customer defection, regulatory penalties, and potentially business failure. Organizations depend critically on IT systems for operations and service delivery, making recovery capability essential for business continuity. Untested procedures provide false assurance of preparedness while leaving the organization vulnerable.
Most regulatory frameworks mandate periodic disaster recovery testing, typically annually, recognizing that documented procedures without demonstrated effectiveness are insufficient. The auditor must report this material weakness to governance, emphasizing the risk to organizational resilience and recommending immediate testing of critical systems to validate recovery capability and identify necessary procedure updates.
Question 162:
An IS auditor is reviewing an organization’s incident response plan and finds that it does not include procedures for evidence preservation and chain of custody. What is the PRIMARY risk?
A) Evidence potentially required for legal proceedings, regulatory investigations, or forensic analysis may be inadvertently destroyed, altered, or rendered inadmissible due to improper handling
B) The incident response team may need additional training
C) Incident documentation may lack some details
D) Response time metrics may be slightly inaccurate
Answer: A
Explanation:
The absence of evidence preservation and chain of custody procedures creates substantial risk that critical evidence will be lost or compromised, potentially preventing successful prosecution of attackers, defending against liability claims, or satisfying regulatory investigation requirements. During security incidents, responders focused on containment and recovery may inadvertently destroy evidence through actions like powering down systems, deleting malicious files, or rebuilding compromised servers.
Chain of custody documentation establishes the integrity and handling history of evidence, proving it wasn’t altered between collection and presentation. Without proper procedures, collected evidence may be legally inadmissible because its integrity cannot be verified. Defense attorneys can challenge evidence that lacks documented chain of custody, potentially causing cases to collapse despite having technically sound forensic findings.
Evidence preservation requires specific procedures including creating forensic images before analysis to preserve original evidence, documenting all handling and analysis steps with timestamps and personnel identification, maintaining physical security of evidence storage, and following legal requirements for evidence retention periods. Improper evidence handling, such as analyzing original disks rather than copies, examining systems without forensic tools that preserve timestamps, or storing evidence in unsecured locations, can render evidence worthless.
Legal and regulatory implications extend beyond criminal prosecution to include civil litigation, regulatory compliance investigations, insurance claims, and internal disciplinary actions. Organizations may need evidence to defend against lawsuits claiming negligence in security, demonstrate compliance with breach notification laws requiring investigation findings, support insurance claims for incident-related losses, or justify employee terminations based on policy violations.
The increasing sophistication of cyber attacks and growing regulatory scrutiny make evidence handling capability essential. Data breach notification laws, GDPR, and sector-specific regulations often require organizations to investigate incidents and report findings to regulators. Regulatory investigations may request evidence of incident scope and response actions. Without proper evidence handling, organizations cannot satisfy these requirements.
The auditor should recommend immediate development of evidence handling procedures, training incident response personnel in forensic principles, and potentially establishing relationships with external forensic specialists for serious incidents requiring expert evidence collection.
Question 163:
An IS auditor finds that developers have direct access to production databases with no logging of their activities. What is the MOST significant risk?
A) Unauthorized changes to production data or code could occur without detection, creating risks of fraud, data corruption, compliance violations, and inability to maintain audit trails
B) Developers may occasionally need to work overtime
C) Database performance monitoring may be more complex
D) Software deployment schedules may need coordination
Answer: A
Explanation:
Direct developer access to production databases without activity logging represents a critical control weakness that enables unauthorized changes, fraud, and compliance violations while preventing detection and investigation. This violates fundamental segregation of duties principles essential for maintaining data integrity, security, and accountability.
The risk of unauthorized data changes is substantial when developers, who possess technical skills to modify database structures and manipulate data, have unfettered production access. Malicious developers could alter financial records to commit fraud, modify customer data for personal gain, delete audit trails to conceal unauthorized activities, or inject backdoors for future exploitation. Without activity logging, these actions leave no audit trail, making detection nearly impossible until downstream impacts are noticed, by which time evidence is gone and damage is done.
Accidental data corruption represents an additional risk, as developers testing theories or attempting to resolve production issues may inadvertently execute destructive queries, drop tables, or corrupt data through mistyped commands. In development or test environments, such mistakes are recoverable learning experiences, but in production, they cause business disruptions, data loss, and recovery costs. Without logs documenting what occurred, root cause analysis and recovery are significantly complicated.
Compliance implications are severe across multiple regulatory frameworks. SOX requires segregation of duties and audit trails for financial systems, PCI-DSS mandates logging of all access to cardholder data, GDPR requires ability to demonstrate lawful processing and detect unauthorized access, and HIPAA demands access controls and audit logs for protected health information. Direct developer access without logging violates these requirements, exposing organizations to penalties, failed audits, and potential loss of certifications or processing privileges.
The inability to investigate incidents or respond to auditor inquiries creates operational and legal risks. When data discrepancies are discovered, organizations must determine whether they resulted from system errors, authorized changes, or unauthorized manipulation. Without logs, this determination becomes impossible, leaving management unable to assess incident severity, identify responsible parties, or implement corrective actions. During legal proceedings or regulatory investigations, inability to produce audit trails undermines the organization’s position.
Audit trail integrity supports financial statement reliability, fraud detection, and regulatory compliance. External auditors rely on system logs to verify that only authorized changes occurred, that segregation of duties was maintained, and that financial data integrity was preserved. Absence of logging may result in qualified audit opinions or findings of material weaknesses in internal controls.
The auditor should recommend immediate implementation of comprehensive database activity monitoring, removal of direct developer production access in favor of controlled change management processes, and implementation of privileged access management solutions requiring approval and logging for emergency production access.
Question 164:
During a review of the change management process, an IS auditor notes that emergency changes are frequently made without following documented approval procedures. What should be the auditor’s PRIMARY recommendation?
A) Implement procedures requiring post-implementation review and approval of all emergency changes, documenting justification, reviewing appropriateness, and updating change records to maintain accountability
B) Eliminate all emergency change procedures
C) Allow emergency changes without any review process
D) Require the same multi-week approval process for emergencies as standard changes
Answer: A
Explanation:
Emergency changes require expedited processes to address critical issues rapidly, but bypassing normal controls creates risks of unauthorized changes, inadequate testing, and lack of accountability. Post-implementation review processes balance the need for rapid response with governance requirements, ensuring emergency procedures aren’t abused while maintaining appropriate oversight.
The fundamental challenge with emergency changes is balancing speed and control. Critical production issues like system outages, security breaches, or data corruption require immediate remediation without waiting for change advisory board meetings or multi-level approvals that might take days or weeks. However, completely bypassing approval processes creates opportunities for unauthorized changes disguised as emergencies, inadequately tested changes causing additional problems, and circumvention of segregation of duties controls.
Post-implementation review addresses this balance by allowing authorized personnel to implement emergency changes immediately while requiring retrospective review to validate appropriateness. The review process should occur within a short timeframe, typically 24-72 hours after implementation, while details are fresh and issues can be remediated if necessary. Reviews should verify that the change was truly emergency in nature, that appropriate personnel authorized it, that testing was conducted to the extent possible under time constraints, that documentation adequately describes what was changed and why, and that no unauthorized modifications were included.
Documentation requirements for emergency changes must capture sufficient information for post-implementation review. Minimum documentation should include the nature of the emergency and business impact if not addressed immediately, who authorized the emergency change and under what authority, what changes were made with technical details, what testing was performed, and what rollback procedures are available if issues arise. This documentation enables reviewers to assess whether emergency procedures were appropriate and whether the change should be ratified, modified, or reversed.
The accountability mechanism inherent in post-implementation review deters abuse of emergency change procedures. Knowing that emergency changes will be scrutinized shortly after implementation discourages using emergency procedures for routine changes that should follow normal processes. Patterns of inappropriate emergency changes by specific individuals should trigger corrective actions including additional training, enhanced supervision, or disciplinary measures.
Change management metrics should track emergency change frequency, reasons for emergency designation, success rates, and post-implementation review findings. Excessive emergency changes may indicate underlying process problems such as inadequate capacity management, poor preventive maintenance, or insufficient change planning. Analysis of emergency change patterns helps identify opportunities for process improvement.
Integration with incident management ensures emergency changes addressing security or operational incidents are properly documented as part of incident response. This linkage maintains comprehensive audit trails connecting incidents to remediating changes.
The auditor should verify that post-implementation review procedures are documented, consistently followed, include appropriate approvals, result in change record updates, and generate reports for management oversight of emergency change activity.
Question 165:
An IS auditor discovers that database backups are stored in the same data center as production systems. What is the PRIMARY risk?
A) A disaster affecting the data center could destroy both production systems and backups simultaneously, preventing recovery and causing permanent data loss
B) Backup storage may consume excessive space
C) Backup restoration testing may be inconvenient
D) Backup processes may require network bandwidth
Answer: A
Explanation:
Co-locating backups with production systems creates single points of failure where disasters affecting the primary data center, such as fires, floods, earthquakes, or infrastructure failures, simultaneously destroy both production data and backups needed for recovery. This represents one of the most fundamental failures in disaster recovery planning, potentially causing catastrophic permanent data loss.
The purpose of backups is to provide recovery capability when primary systems fail or data is lost due to hardware failures, software bugs, cyber attacks, or human errors. However, backups only fulfill this purpose if they remain available when needed. Co-located backups are vulnerable to the same disaster scenarios as production systems, defeating their fundamental purpose. A fire consuming the data center destroys servers and backup media alike, leaving nothing to recover from.
Disaster scenarios threatening co-located backups include natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, or wildfires that can devastate entire facilities and surrounding areas, infrastructure failures including electrical fires, cooling system failures, or structural collapse, malicious actions like arson, sabotage, or terrorist attacks, and cyber attacks employing ransomware that encrypts both production data and connected backup systems.
Geographic separation of backups represents best practice disaster recovery, with industry standards recommending offsite backup storage at distances sufficient to avoid common disaster scenarios. Specific distance recommendations vary by threat assessment, but generally range from 50 miles minimum for common disasters to hundreds of miles for major metropolitan areas susceptible to regional disasters.
The 3-2-1 backup rule provides a simple framework for resilient backup strategies: maintain at least three copies of data, store copies on two different media types, and keep one copy offsite. This approach ensures that failure of any single storage medium, location, or technology doesn’t result in total data loss. Cloud-based backup solutions have simplified offsite backup implementation, enabling automated replication to geographically distant regions.
Backup validation through periodic restoration testing remains essential even with geographic separation. Organizations should regularly verify that backup media is readable, restoration procedures work correctly, recovery time objectives can be met, and data integrity is maintained. However, co-located backups should be addressed first as they represent more fundamental risks than restoration testing gaps.
Regulatory and compliance implications affect organizations in sectors with data retention requirements. Financial institutions, healthcare organizations, and publicly traded companies face regulatory mandates for data retention and disaster recovery capabilities. Inability to recover data due to inadequate backup practices may constitute compliance violations beyond the business impact.
The auditor should recommend immediate implementation of offsite backup storage, either through physical media transportation to remote locations or electronic replication to geographically separated data centers or cloud regions. Interim measures might include rotating backup media to offsite storage daily while implementing automated replication solutions for long-term sustainability.
Question 166:
An IS auditor finds that access reviews for privileged accounts are conducted annually, but there are 500 privileged accounts in the environment. What is the PRIMARY concern?
A) Annual reviews may be insufficient frequency for detecting and removing inappropriate privileged access given the number of accounts and the high risk associated with privileged access rights
B) The review process may require significant time from reviewers
C) Documentation of reviews may require storage space
D) Review reports may be lengthy documents
Answer: A
Explanation:
The combination of high privileged account volume and infrequent review creates extended windows during which inappropriate access can remain undetected, enabling potential misuse, fraud, or security breaches. Privileged accounts warrant more frequent review than standard user accounts due to their elevated risk profile and potential damage from misuse.
Privileged accounts provide administrative rights enabling actions like modifying security configurations, accessing sensitive data regardless of normal restrictions, creating or deleting user accounts, bypassing security controls, and making system-wide changes. Misuse of privileged access can compromise entire systems, corrupt critical data, create persistent backdoors, or facilitate large-scale fraud. The consequences of privileged account misuse typically far exceed those from standard account compromises.
Annual review frequency creates 12-month windows during which inappropriate privileged access persists. Personnel changes occur continuously through terminations, role changes, and project completions. An employee who transferred from a role requiring privileged access in month one retains that access for up to 12 months until the next review cycle. During this period, the unnecessary privileged access creates separation of duties violations and opportunities for misuse.
The 500 account volume compounds the frequency problem. Large privileged account populations are more difficult to manage and review comprehensively. Reviewers examining hundreds of accounts may experience fatigue leading to inadequate scrutiny. The probability that some accounts escape proper review increases with population size. Additionally, 500 privileged accounts suggests possible over-provisioning, where excessive personnel have been granted privileged access that could be restricted.
Industry best practices recommend quarterly or monthly reviews for privileged accounts, reflecting their heightened risk. Some organizations implement continuous monitoring using identity governance solutions that flag inappropriate access in real-time based on role changes, policy violations, or anomalous usage patterns. Automated review workflows can streamline the process, presenting reviewers with risk-scored accounts requiring attestation while applying analytics to identify anomalies.
The review process should verify that each privileged account is still required based on current job responsibilities, that access levels are appropriate for current role requirements, that the account has been used within reasonable timeframes suggesting active need, and that no policy violations or suspicious usage patterns exist. Unused or dormant privileged accounts should be disabled or removed, as they represent unnecessary risk exposure.
Account lifecycle management integration ensures privileged access reviews consider personnel status changes. Terminations should trigger immediate privileged access revocation rather than waiting for periodic reviews. Role changes should prompt access reassessment. Leaves of absence should result in temporary disablement. These lifecycle events should not wait for scheduled reviews.
The auditor should recommend increasing privileged account review frequency to at least quarterly, implementing automated identity governance solutions to support continuous monitoring, conducting immediate account rationalization to reduce the privileged account population to only those truly requiring such access, and establishing exception processes for rapid privileged access removal upon termination or role changes.
Question 167:
During an audit of a third-party vendor contract, an IS auditor notes that the contract lacks provisions for right-to-audit clauses. What is the MOST significant risk?
A) The organization cannot verify vendor compliance with security requirements, data protection obligations, or regulatory requirements, creating exposure to undetected vendor control failures
B) Contract renewal negotiations may require additional discussions
C) Vendor invoicing processes may lack transparency
D) Service level agreement reporting may be delayed
Answer: A
Explanation:
Absence of right-to-audit clauses in vendor contracts prevents organizations from verifying that vendors maintain adequate security controls, comply with data protection obligations, and satisfy regulatory requirements applicable to outsourced functions. This creates significant exposure to undetected control failures that may result in data breaches, compliance violations, or service disruptions.
Organizations remain accountable for security and compliance even when functions are outsourced to third parties. Regulatory frameworks explicitly state that outsourcing does not transfer responsibility for data protection, security, or compliance. Organizations must demonstrate that vendors handling their data or performing critical functions maintain adequate controls. Without contractual audit rights, organizations cannot fulfill this due diligence obligation.
Right-to-audit clauses typically grant customers the ability to conduct or commission independent audits of vendor security controls, access relevant vendor documentation and policies, review audit reports and certifications, inspect facilities where customer data is processed or stored, and verify vendor compliance with contractual obligations. These rights enable verification beyond vendor self-attestation.
The inability to verify vendor controls creates multiple risks including data breaches resulting from inadequate vendor security that the organization cannot detect or remediate, compliance violations where vendors fail to meet regulatory requirements applicable to outsourced functions, service disruptions from vendor operational failures not identified through monitoring, and legal liability from vendor actions the organization cannot oversee.
SOC 2 reports provide some visibility into vendor controls, but they have limitations. SOC 2 reports cover only the controls and time periods the vendor selects, may not address all requirements relevant to specific customers, and rely on vendor selection of audit scope and auditors. Right-to-audit clauses complement SOC 2 reports by enabling customers to verify specific concerns or areas not covered by standard reports.
The shared responsibility model in cloud computing makes audit rights particularly important. Cloud providers maintain infrastructure security while customers secure their configurations and data. Understanding which controls the provider implements versus customer responsibilities requires visibility that audit rights enable. Without these rights, customers must trust provider representations without verification.
Substitute controls may partially mitigate missing audit rights, such as requiring vendors to maintain industry certifications like ISO 27001, requiring vendors to provide SOC 2 Type II reports annually, implementing technical monitoring of vendor-provided services, and requiring vendors to submit to security assessments by customer-designated parties. However, these substitutes are less effective than direct audit rights because they limit customer control over audit scope and timing.
Contract negotiation leverage affects ability to obtain audit rights. Large vendors serving many customers may resist individual customer audit rights, instead offering standardized certifications and reports. In these cases, organizations should at minimum require comprehensive third-party audit reports and reserve rights to audit upon reasonable suspicion of control failures or following security incidents.
The auditor should recommend renegotiating contracts to include audit rights when renewals occur, establishing minimum requirements for third-party audit reports and certifications as interim controls, implementing compensating technical monitoring where audit rights cannot be obtained, and developing risk assessments identifying highest-risk vendor relationships prioritizing audit right implementation.
Question 168:
An IS auditor discovers that encryption keys used for database encryption are stored on the same server as the encrypted database. What is the PRIMARY risk?
A) Compromise of the server provides attackers with both encrypted data and decryption keys, negating encryption protection and exposing sensitive data
B) Key management processes may require documentation updates
C) Encryption may slightly impact database query performance
D) Key rotation procedures may need scheduling coordination
Answer: A
Explanation:
Storing encryption keys alongside encrypted data defeats the purpose of encryption by providing attackers who compromise the server with everything needed to decrypt sensitive data. Encryption is only effective when keys remain protected separately from encrypted data, ensuring that system compromise doesn’t automatically provide data access.
The principle of key separation requires that encryption keys be stored using different security controls and access paths than encrypted data. Ideally, keys reside on separate systems with independent access controls, are managed by different administrative teams implementing segregation of duties, and require different attack methods or privileges to access. This separation ensures that single system compromises or individual attacker actions don’t provide complete data access.
The attack scenarios enabled by co-located keys include system compromise where attackers gaining server access through vulnerabilities or stolen credentials immediately access both database files and decryption keys, insider threats where malicious administrators with server access copy databases and keys for offline decryption, backup theft where database backups including co-located keys are stolen providing complete data access, and physical theft where stolen servers or storage media contain everything needed for data extraction.
Key management best practices require using dedicated key management systems or hardware security modules that store keys separately from encrypted data. These systems provide secure key storage with hardware-based protection, centralized key lifecycle management including generation, rotation, and destruction, access controls and audit logging specific to key operations, and cryptographic processing within secure boundaries.
Cloud environments offer key management services like AWS KMS, Azure Key Vault, and Google Cloud KMS that maintain keys separately from application data. These services provide API-based key access with fine-grained permissions, automatic key rotation, and audit trails. Applications retrieve keys from these services at runtime rather than storing them locally, ensuring separation.
Envelope encryption provides additional protection by encrypting data with data encryption keys (DEKs) that are themselves encrypted by key encryption keys (KEKs) stored separately. Even if DEKs are stored near data, they’re encrypted and useless without KEKs from the key management system. This layered approach provides defense-in-depth.
The temporary key exposure during database runtime represents a design challenge. Applications must access keys to encrypt/decrypt data during operation, requiring keys be available in server memory. However, memory-resident keys are significantly more difficult to extract than keys stored in clear text on disk. Technical controls like memory encryption, secure enclaves, or hardware cryptographic processors provide additional protection for runtime keys.
Compliance frameworks explicitly require key separation. PCI-DSS mandates that cryptographic keys be stored separately from encrypted data, HIPAA requires encryption key protection independent of encrypted ePHI, and GDPR’s security requirements imply proper key management for effective encryption.
The auditor should recommend immediate implementation of enterprise key management infrastructure or cloud key management services, migration of encryption keys from database servers to dedicated key management systems, and implementation of envelope encryption or similar layered key protection approaches for additional security.
Question 169:
An IS auditor reviews password policies and finds that passwords expire every 90 days, but there is no password history enforcement. What is the risk?
A) Users may circumvent password expiration by immediately cycling back to previous passwords, defeating the purpose of periodic password changes and potentially maintaining compromised passwords indefinitely
B) Users may need to remember current passwords
C) Password reset requests to help desk may increase
D) Password complexity requirements may need documentation
Answer: A
Explanation:
Password history enforcement prevents password reuse, ensuring that when password changes are required, users cannot simply revert to previous passwords. Without history enforcement, users can cycle through minimum required changes and return to their original password, defeating the security objective of regular password rotation.
The rationale for password expiration is limiting the window of exposure if passwords are compromised through credential stuffing, brute force attacks, keylogging, or data breaches. By forcing periodic changes, organizations theoretically limit how long compromised credentials remain valid. However, this benefit only accrues if users actually select new, unique passwords rather than variations or reuses of previous passwords.
Common user behaviors when password history isn’t enforced include changing passwords multiple times in succession to cycle through history requirements and revert to original passwords, using patterns like adding sequential numbers that are predictable, and maintaining the same base password with minor variations. These behaviors are entirely rational from user perspectives seeking to minimize memory burden, but they undermine security objectives.
The technical implementation of password history maintains hashes of previous passwords and compares new password hashes against history during password changes. The history depth determines how many previous passwords are remembered, with 12-24 being common values ensuring users cannot quickly cycle back to previous passwords. Combined with minimum password age settings preventing rapid successive changes, history enforcement becomes effective.
Recent guidance from NIST and other authorities has questioned mandatory periodic password changes for standard user accounts, noting that they encourage predictable password patterns and burden users without corresponding security benefits. NIST SP 800-63B recommends against periodic password changes unless compromise is suspected, instead emphasizing password complexity, length, and breach monitoring. However, many organizations still implement expiration for privileged accounts or compliance reasons.
For organizations implementing password expiration, history enforcement becomes essential to prevent complete circumvention. Without it, the security overhead of forcing changes provides no actual protection while imposing user burden and help desk costs. If password expiration is required, history enforcement should remember at least 12-24 previous passwords, minimum password age should prevent rapid cycling, and users should receive clear communication about security rationales.
Alternative or complementary controls include multi-factor authentication reducing password compromise impact regardless of password management, password breach monitoring detecting when user passwords appear in credential dumps, passwordless authentication using biometrics or hardware tokens eliminating password vulnerabilities, and single sign-on reducing the number of passwords users must manage.
The password lifecycle includes not just expiration and history but also complexity requirements, account lockout policies, secure storage using appropriate hashing algorithms, and secure transmission using encrypted protocols. These elements work together to provide comprehensive password security.
The auditor should recommend implementing password history enforcement remembering at least 12 previous passwords, reviewing whether password expiration provides sufficient value to justify continued implementation, implementing multi-factor authentication as higher-value security control, and considering modern passwordless or SSO solutions reducing password security dependencies.
Question 170:
During a network security audit, an IS auditor finds that network switches have not been configured with port security features. What is the PRIMARY risk?
A) Unauthorized devices may be connected to the network, enabling rogue access points, packet sniffing, man-in-the-middle attacks, or unauthorized network access bypassing perimeter controls
B) Network configuration documentation may need updates
C) Switch firmware may require occasional updates
D) Network monitoring tools may need configuration adjustments
Answer: A
Explanation:
Port security features on network switches prevent unauthorized devices from connecting to network ports, protecting against various attacks that exploit physical network access. Without port security, anyone with physical access to network ports can connect unauthorized devices, bypass perimeter security controls, and potentially compromise the network.
Unauthorized device risks include rogue access points that create unmonitored wireless access bypassing firewall and authentication controls, packet sniffers capturing network traffic including potentially sensitive data transmitted within the trusted network, man-in-the-middle attack devices that intercept and potentially modify communications between legitimate systems, and unauthorized computers connecting to internal networks without authentication or security controls.
Port security mechanisms include MAC address filtering limiting which device hardware addresses can connect to specific ports, 802.1X authentication requiring devices to authenticate before gaining network access using RADIUS or similar authentication services, and network access control solutions that verify device compliance with security policies before granting access.
Physical security alone is insufficient because insiders may connect unauthorized devices, visitors may find unsecured network ports in conference rooms or common areas, cleaning or maintenance personnel working outside normal hours may be exploited by attackers, and attackers may gain temporary physical access through tailgating or after-hours intrusion.
The trusted internal network assumption that traffic within the corporate network is inherently trustworthy becomes dangerous without port security. Many organizations implement strong perimeter defenses while maintaining relatively open internal networks. This defense-in-depth failure allows attackers who gain any internal foothold, whether through physical access or compromising a single system, to move laterally without restriction.
Rogue access points represent particularly serious risks because they often bypass wireless security controls organizations implement on legitimate access points. An attacker connecting a consumer-grade wireless router to an internal network port creates an unmonitored, unencrypted backdoor into the network. Remote attackers parking near the facility can access internal networks through these rogue access points.
The rise of IoT devices increases unauthorized connection risks. Smart TVs, personal devices, unauthorized wireless devices, and IoT sensors may be connected by users without security review. While some are innocuous, others may have
vulnerabilities that attackers exploit to gain network footholds.
VLAN segregation provides defense-in-depth complementing port security. Even if unauthorized devices connect, network segmentation limits what they can access. Guest networks, employee networks, and sensitive system networks should be segregated with firewall rules controlling inter-VLAN traffic.
The auditor should recommend implementing port security features on all access switches including MAC address limiting or 802.1X authentication, disabling unused ports to prevent connection of unauthorized devices, implementing network access control solutions for device health verification, and establishing processes for authorizing and documenting temporary device connections.
Question 171:
An IS auditor discovers that system administrators use shared generic accounts rather than individual accounts for administrative tasks. What is the MOST significant risk?
A) Lack of individual accountability for administrative actions prevents accurate audit trails, detective controls, and incident investigation, enabling unauthorized actions without attribution
B) Password management may be slightly more complex
C) System documentation may lack some administrator names
D) Training records may be harder to maintain
Answer: A
Explanation:
Shared administrative accounts eliminate individual accountability by making it impossible to determine which specific administrator performed particular actions. This prevents effective audit trails, undermines detective controls, complicates incident investigation, and enables malicious administrators to act without attribution or deterrence.
Individual accountability serves multiple critical functions including attribution of actions to specific individuals enabling investigation of unauthorized or suspicious activities, deterrence where administrators knowing their actions are traceable are less likely to abuse privileges, compliance with regulatory requirements mandating individual user identification, and support for legal or HR actions requiring evidence of specific individual actions.
Audit trail integrity depends on accurately identifying who performed each action. Generic account logs show that “admin” or “root” took actions but not which specific administrator used those credentials. During incident investigations, this ambiguity prevents determining whether actions were authorized, identifying responsible parties for follow-up, reconstructing sequences of events, or gathering evidence for disciplinary or legal actions.
Insider threat detection becomes nearly impossible with shared accounts because behavior analytics and anomaly detection require establishing baseline patterns for individual users. Shared accounts create combined baselines reflecting multiple administrators’ behaviors, making it impossible to detect when one administrator exhibits anomalous patterns suggesting malicious intent or compromise.
The psychological impact of accountability affects behavior. Research consistently shows that identifiable actions are more likely to be careful and policy-compliant than anonymous actions. Administrators knowing their activities are individually logged exercise more caution and thoughtfulness. Conversely, shared accounts where individuals believe actions cannot be traced to them reduce psychological constraints against policy violations.
Password sharing inherent in generic accounts creates security vulnerabilities. Shared passwords tend to be static because changing them requires coordinating with all users. They’re often written down or shared via insecure channels because multiple people need them. When administrators leave the organization, shared passwords often aren’t changed because of coordination difficulties, leaving former employees with ongoing access.
Privileged access management solutions address shared account issues while maintaining audit trails. These solutions check out privileged credentials to specific users for defined periods, log which individual used generic accounts, automatically rotate passwords after use, and provide session recording for high-risk activities. This approach maintains individual accountability while allowing necessary use of system accounts that cannot be renamed.
The technical challenge is that some systems have built-in administrative accounts like “root” or “Administrator” that cannot be eliminated. Best practices for these situations include disabling generic accounts where technically possible, implementing sudo or similar elevation tools that provide individual accountability while using privileged accounts, deploying privileged access management solutions tracking individual usage of shared accounts, and establishing procedures requiring documented justification for generic account usage.
Separation of duties becomes impossible with shared administrative accounts because you cannot verify that different individuals performed sensitive transaction components when all use the same account. Critical operations requiring dual control or maker-checker processes lose effectiveness when both parties use shared credentials.
The auditor should recommend immediately implementing individual administrative accounts for all system administrators, deploying privileged access management solutions for situations requiring generic account usage, disabling or strictly controlling shared administrative credentials, and implementing compensating detective controls like enhanced logging and monitoring where technical limitations prevent complete individual account implementation.
Question 172:
An IS auditor reviewing a cloud migration project finds that the organization did not perform security assessments of the cloud provider before migrating sensitive data. What is the PRIMARY concern?
A) The organization cannot verify that cloud provider security controls meet organizational requirements, potentially exposing sensitive data to inadequate protection, unauthorized access, or compliance violations
B) Cloud service costs may need budget adjustments
C) Cloud service documentation may be extensive
D) Migration project timelines may require updates
Answer: A
Explanation:
Migrating sensitive data to cloud environments without security assessment creates substantial risk that cloud provider controls are inadequate for data sensitivity levels, fail to meet regulatory requirements, or contain misconfigurations exposing data to unauthorized access. Organizations remain accountable for data security even when using cloud providers, making pre-migration due diligence essential.
Shared responsibility models in cloud computing divide security obligations between providers and customers. Providers secure underlying infrastructure including physical facilities, networks, and hypervisors, while customers secure their data, applications, and access controls. Understanding this division requires assessment of what controls providers implement versus what customers must configure. Without assessment, organizations may assume providers handle security aspects that are actually customer responsibility, leaving gaps.
Security assessment should evaluate cloud provider controls across multiple domains including physical security of data centers, network security and segmentation, encryption capabilities for data at rest and in transit, access controls and identity management, logging and monitoring capabilities, backup and disaster recovery, incident response procedures, and compliance certifications. This evaluation determines whether provider controls are adequate for organizational data sensitivity.
Compliance considerations vary by industry and regulation. Healthcare organizations must ensure HIPAA requirements are met, financial institutions need compliance with SOX, PCI-DSS, and sector-specific regulations, EU organizations must address GDPR requirements, and government agencies may face FedRAMP or similar government cloud standards. Cloud providers serving these sectors typically maintain relevant certifications, but organizations must verify certifications cover their specific use cases and that they implement required customer-responsibility controls.
Data classification drives assessment depth. Highly sensitive data including personal information, financial data, intellectual property, or regulated information requires comprehensive assessment, while less-sensitive data may justify lighter evaluation. Organizations should perform initial assessments before migration and ongoing assessments as services and data sensitivity evolve.
Third-party attestations like SOC 2 Type II reports provide valuable information about provider controls but have limitations. These reports cover only controls the provider selects for inclusion, reflect point-in-time or period testing not necessarily covering current state, and may not address organization-specific requirements or configurations. Organizations should review these reports but not rely exclusively on them without assessment of customer-responsibility areas.
Configuration security represents a common gap even when underlying cloud platforms are secure. Misconfigured S3 buckets exposing public access, overly permissive IAM policies, disabled encryption, or missing logging configurations can expose data despite robust provider infrastructure. Security assessment should include configuration review specific to how the organization implements cloud services.
The assessment should occur before migration, not after data already resides in the cloud. Post-migration assessment may discover unacceptable gaps requiring costly data moves or complex remediation while data remains exposed. Pre-migration assessment enables informed decisions about whether to proceed, what controls to implement, or whether alternative providers better meet requirements.
Risk-based migration phasing should result from assessment findings. Organizations might migrate less-sensitive data first while implementing additional controls for sensitive data, delay migration until provider capabilities improve, or select different service models (IaaS versus PaaS versus SaaS) based on control requirements and assessment findings.
The auditor should recommend conducting comprehensive security assessments before any future cloud migrations, performing retroactive assessment of current cloud environments to identify gaps requiring remediation, implementing cloud security posture management tools for ongoing monitoring, and establishing cloud vendor management processes requiring security evaluation before any cloud service adoption.
Question 173:
During a review of mobile device management, an IS auditor finds that employees can access corporate email from personal devices without any MDM controls. What is the MOST significant risk?
A) Corporate data may be stored on unmanaged personal devices, creating risks of data leakage through lost devices, unauthorized access, malware infection, or inability to remotely wipe data
B) Mobile device support may require help desk resource allocation
C) Email synchronization may consume bandwidth
D) Mobile device compatibility may vary
Answer: A
Explanation:
Allowing corporate data access from unmanaged personal devices creates significant data security and compliance risks because organizations cannot control how data is stored, protected, or handled on these devices. Lost or stolen devices, device compromises, or insider misuse can expose sensitive corporate information without organizational ability to detect or respond.
Mobile device management controls provide essential security capabilities including enforcing device encryption to protect data on lost or stolen devices, requiring device passcodes meeting complexity standards, enabling remote wipe to remove corporate data from lost devices or when employees leave, restricting application installation that might contain malware, enforcing security patch deployment to address vulnerabilities, and controlling which corporate resources devices can access.
The bring-your-own-device trend increases convenience and reduces costs but expands security perimeters to include devices outside organizational control. Personal devices may run outdated operating systems with unpatched vulnerabilities, have security settings weakened for user convenience, run untrusted applications that could contain malware or spyware, connect to insecure public WiFi networks, or be shared with family members who inadvertently access corporate data.
Data leakage vectors from unmanaged devices include email forwarding where employees forward corporate emails containing sensitive information to personal accounts, cloud storage sync where corporate documents are automatically backed up to personal cloud storage, screenshot and copy capabilities allowing extraction of sensitive information, device backups including corporate data stored in unencrypted device backups, and malicious applications accessing email data or attachments.
Lost or stolen device scenarios represent substantial risk because personal devices are more likely to be lost or stolen than corporate-issued devices secured in offices overnight. Without remote wipe capability, organizations cannot remove corporate data from lost devices. Device encryption provides some protection, but weak or no passcodes on personal devices make encryption less effective. Full device encryption is often disabled on personal devices due to performance concerns or user preference.
Regulatory compliance issues arise particularly for organizations in regulated industries. HIPAA requires encryption and the ability to remotely wipe protected health information from mobile devices. PCI-DSS requires security controls on devices accessing cardholder data. GDPR requires appropriate technical measures protecting personal data. Without MDM, organizations cannot demonstrate compliance with these requirements.
Containerization approaches provide middle-ground solutions separating corporate data from personal data on devices. Enterprise mobility management solutions create secure containers for corporate applications and data, enforce policies within containers while leaving personal device areas uncontrolled, enable selective wipe removing only corporate data when needed, and provide some visibility into security posture without invasive monitoring of personal activities.
The balancing act between security and privacy concerns employees who worry about organizational monitoring or control of personal devices. Well-designed MDM implementations respect privacy by controlling only corporate data containers, clearly communicating what organizational visibility and control exists, allowing users to opt out by using corporate-issued devices instead, and establishing policies restricting how organizational monitoring data is used.
The auditor should recommend implementing mobile device management or enterprise mobility management solutions for all devices accessing corporate data, establishing policies requiring MDM enrollment for personal devices accessing corporate resources, deploying containerization solutions that balance security with privacy concerns, and implementing conditional access policies preventing unmanaged devices from accessing sensitive corporate resources.
Question 174:
An IS auditor finds that developers are testing new code changes in the production environment rather than using separate development or test environments. What is the PRIMARY risk?
A) Untested code changes may cause production outages, data corruption, or security vulnerabilities, while development activities may expose or corrupt production data
B) Development tools may require additional software licenses
C) Testing documentation may need reorganization
D) Development schedules may need coordination
Answer: A
Explanation:
Testing in production environments creates severe risks of unintended consequences affecting business operations, customer service, and data integrity. Development and testing activities involve experimental code that may contain bugs, performance issues, or security vulnerabilities that should be identified and resolved before production deployment.
Production outage risks stem from untested code containing logic errors that crash systems, resource leaks that exhaust memory or connections, infinite loops or inefficient algorithms that consume excessive CPU, or dependency conflicts where new code is incompatible with existing components. These issues, discovered through proper testing in isolated environments, can be devastating when they manifest in production systems serving customers or supporting critical business processes.
Data corruption represents another serious risk when testing occurs in production. Development activities may involve database schema changes, data migration scripts, or data manipulation operations that could corrupt production data if errors exist. Unlike outages that affect availability temporarily, data corruption may be permanent if backups are insufficient or corruption isn’t immediately detected. Recovery from data corruption is expensive, time-consuming, and may be incomplete.
Security vulnerabilities introduced by untested code may include SQL injection flaws, authentication bypasses, authorization weaknesses, or exposure of sensitive data. Development environments should include security testing to identify these vulnerabilities before deployment. Testing in production means customers and attackers potentially encounter vulnerabilities before developers, creating windows for exploitation.
The absence of change control associated with production testing means changes occur without proper review, approval, documentation, or rollback planning. This bypasses governance controls designed to ensure changes are appropriate, authorized, and safely implemented. Ad-hoc production changes create configuration drift where production environments diverge from documented states.
Development data access concerns arise because developers testing in production require access to production systems and data. This access enables developers to see sensitive customer information, financial data, or other confidential information beyond their need-to-know. This violates privacy principles and increases insider threat risks. Additionally, developers with production access can intentionally or accidentally make unauthorized changes.
The inability to reproduce issues hampers debugging when testing occurs in production. Development environments should mirror production sufficiently to identify issues, but differences in scale, data, or configuration mean production-only testing may encounter problems that could have been caught earlier with proper test environments. When issues occur in production, developers struggle to reproduce them without production access, complicating troubleshooting.
Test data management in production creates problems because testing often requires specific data scenarios including edge cases, error conditions, or high-volume loads. Creating or manipulating production data for these test scenarios may corrupt real customer data or create false business records. Separate test environments enable using realistic test data without contaminating production.
Performance testing particularly requires separate environments because load testing activities could degrade production system performance for real users. Stress testing to determine system limits might cause outages. Capacity planning requires experimentation that shouldn’t affect production.
The auditor should recommend immediately ceasing development activities in production, implementing separate development, test, and staging environments mirroring production sufficiently for effective testing, establishing change management processes requiring testing in non-production environments before production deployment, and implementing access controls restricting developer production access to emergency situations with post-implementation review.
Question 175:
An IS auditor discovers that database administrators have not been provided with security awareness training specific to their elevated privileges and access to sensitive data. What is the PRIMARY risk?
A) DBAs may be unaware of threats targeting privileged users, social engineering techniques, or data handling requirements, increasing risks of successful attacks or inadvertent security violations
B) Training scheduling may require coordination with DBA work schedules
C) Training documentation may need development
D) Training completion tracking may need database updates
Answer: A
Explanation:
Database administrators with elevated privileges and access to sensitive data represent high-value targets for attackers and face unique security risks requiring specialized training beyond general employee awareness programs. Without role-specific training, DBAs may be unaware of threats they face, security requirements for data they handle, or consequences of security mistakes.
Privileged user targeting by sophisticated attackers means DBAs face elevated phishing, social engineering, and targeted attack risks compared to general employees. Attackers specifically research and target privileged users because compromising their accounts provides extensive access to sensitive data and critical systems. Standard security awareness training covering general phishing may not adequately prepare DBAs for sophisticated spear-phishing campaigns, pretexting attacks, or quid-pro-quo social engineering specifically crafted to exploit their privileged positions.
Data handling requirements vary by data sensitivity, with DBAs often accessing regulated data subject to HIPAA, PCI-DSS, GDPR, or other frameworks. These regulations impose specific requirements for data access, storage, transmission, and disposal that DBAs must understand to ensure compliance. For example, PCI-DSS requires specific logging and monitoring of administrative access to cardholder data, while HIPAA requires minimum necessary access principles and audit trails. Without training, DBAs may inadvertently violate these requirements through actions that seem reasonable but don’t meet regulatory standards.
Insider threat awareness is particularly important for privileged users because their access enables significant damage if misused. Training should cover acceptable use policies, consequences of policy violations, indicators of co-worker suspicious behavior to report, and procedures for reporting security concerns. While most DBAs are trustworthy, training reinforces expectations and provides deterrent effects by clearly communicating accountability and monitoring.
Social engineering resistance requires specific training because DBAs receive urgent requests for data access, password resets, or configuration changes that may actually be pretexts for unauthorized access. Attackers impersonating executives or help desk staff may request database access or information. DBAs need training in verifying request authenticity through callback verification, validating authorization through ticketing systems, and following change management procedures even under pressure.
Secure administration practices including using secure protocols, implementing least privilege, separating duties, maintaining audit trails, securing administrative credentials, and avoiding shortcuts that bypass security controls require training to ensure consistent implementation. DBAs may develop habits based on convenience rather than security without clear guidance on secure practices and rationales.
Data classification and handling training ensures DBAs understand which data is sensitive, how to identify personal information or confidential data, appropriate safeguards for different classification levels, and procedures for handling data breaches or suspected compromises. This knowledge enables DBAs to make informed decisions about data protection appropriate to sensitivity.
Incident reporting procedures specific to privileged users should be covered because DBAs may observe security anomalies, unauthorized access attempts, or suspicious queries during normal work. Training should clarify reporting obligations, channels for reporting concerns, and protections against retaliation. Timely reporting by DBAs can enable detection and response to attacks before significant damage occurs.
The training should be role-specific addressing DBA-particular scenarios rather than generic security awareness. Content should include case studies of attacks targeting database administrators, examples of social engineering techniques used against privileged users, demonstrations of secure versus insecure administrative practices, and hands-on exercises in recognizing and responding to security situations DBAs may encounter.
The auditor should recommend developing and delivering role-specific security training for database administrators and other privileged users, ensuring training covers elevated threats, data handling requirements, and secure administrative practices, requiring annual training with updates for emerging threats, and tracking training completion as part of privileged access authorization requirements.
Question 176:
During an application security review, an IS auditor finds that input validation is performed on the client side using JavaScript but not validated again on the server side. What is the PRIMARY risk?
A) Attackers can bypass client-side validation by manipulating requests directly, submitting malicious input that could enable SQL injection, cross-site scripting, or other injection attacks
B) Application performance may be affected by validation processing
C) User interface responsiveness may vary
D) Browser compatibility may require testing
Answer: A
Explanation:
Client-side validation alone provides no security because attackers can trivially bypass it by manipulating HTTP requests directly using proxy tools, modifying HTML or JavaScript locally, crafting requests using curl or similar tools, or disabling JavaScript in browsers. Treating client-side validation as a security control rather than a user experience feature leaves applications vulnerable to numerous injection attacks.
Server-side validation is the essential security control because servers receive requests from potentially hostile clients that cannot be trusted. Every input from users, even through application interfaces that appear to perform validation, must be validated on the server because inputs might not have passed through the intended interface. Defense-in-depth security assumes clients are compromised or malicious and validates all inputs accordingly.
SQL injection attacks exemplify the risk when input validation is inadequate. Attackers submitting malicious SQL code through input fields could execute arbitrary database queries if servers don’t validate inputs before incorporating them into SQL statements. Client-side validation might prevent accidental SQL syntax in inputs but does nothing against intentional attacks. Prepared statements and parameterized queries provide technical defenses, but input validation adds defense-in-depth by rejecting obviously malicious patterns.
Cross-site scripting attacks leverage missing server-side validation to inject JavaScript into pages viewed by other users. If user inputs are displayed to other users without validation and encoding, attackers can inject scripts that steal session cookies, capture keystrokes, deface pages, or redirect users to malicious sites. Client-side validation doesn’t prevent attackers from submitting malicious scripts through request manipulation.
Command injection, XML injection, LDAP injection, and other injection attack types all exploit insufficient input validation. The general pattern is attackers providing inputs containing special characters or syntax that, when processed by server-side systems without proper validation and sanitization, are interpreted as commands or code rather than data. Comprehensive server-side input validation rejecting unexpected characters or patterns provides baseline protection.
The principle of defense-in-depth suggests using both client-side and server-side validation with different purposes. Client-side validation provides immediate user feedback, reduces server load by catching obvious errors before submission, and improves user experience. Server-side validation provides actual security enforcement, handles all possible input sources including API calls and automated tools, and cannot be bypassed by attackers.
Input validation strategies include whitelist validation accepting only explicitly allowed patterns, which is more secure than blacklist validation that attempts to reject known malicious patterns but may miss novel attacks. Validation should enforce type constraints, length limits, format requirements, and business rules. For example, email fields should match email formats, numeric fields should contain only digits, and date fields should represent valid dates within acceptable ranges.
Context-specific encoding prevents injection attacks by ensuring special characters in inputs are treated as data rather than code or syntax. SQL parameter binding treats all inputs as values not SQL syntax, HTML encoding converts special characters so they display rather than execute, JavaScript encoding prevents script injection, and URL encoding prevents manipulation of URLs. These encoding mechanisms complement input validation.
The misconception that client-side validation provides security may stem from developers viewing validation primarily as data quality control rather than security. Training should emphasize that while client-side validation serves user experience purposes, security requires server-side enforcement that assumes clients are hostile.
The auditor should recommend immediately implementing comprehensive server-side input validation for all user inputs, maintaining client-side validation for user experience but never relying on it for security, implementing context-appropriate encoding when outputting user-controlled data, and establishing secure development training emphasizing server-side security controls.
Question 177:
An IS auditor reviewing access controls finds that service accounts used by automated processes have passwords that never expire and are documented in configuration files. What is the PRIMARY risk?
A) Service account credentials may be compromised through configuration file exposure, with non-expiring passwords enabling extended unauthorized access and potential privilege escalation
B) Service account password resets may require application restarts
C) Service account documentation may need centralized storage
D) Service account naming conventions may require standardization
Answer: A
Explanation:
Service accounts with non-expiring passwords stored in configuration files create substantial security risks through credential exposure, inability to detect compromise, and lack of credential rotation limiting damage from breaches. These technical accounts often have elevated privileges for system integrations, making their compromise particularly damaging.
Configuration file exposure occurs through multiple vectors including source code repositories where developers commit configuration files containing credentials, backup systems that include configuration files in system backups, file shares where configuration files are stored for deployment purposes, and insider access where employees with file system access can read configuration files. Once exposed, credentials remain valid indefinitely without expiration.
The non-expiring password problem means compromised credentials remain functional for years or until manually changed. Unlike user accounts with periodic password changes that eventually invalidate stolen credentials, service account credentials stolen today may work indefinitely. Attackers discovering service account credentials through data breaches, repository exposures, or insider access gain persistent unauthorized access that’s difficult to detect.
Privilege escalation risks arise because service accounts often have elevated privileges for their automated functions like database access for application integrations, system administration rights for monitoring tools, or cross-system access for data synchronization. Compromised service accounts provide attackers with these privileges, enabling data theft, system manipulation, or using the account as a launching point for further attacks.
Detection challenges stem from service accounts generating automated activities that are expected and may mask malicious use. Unlike user accounts where unusual activity patterns indicate compromise, service account activity is machine-driven and often difficult to distinguish from normal operations. Attackers using compromised service accounts may blend unauthorized activities into expected patterns.
Credential rotation best practices require periodic password changes even for service accounts, ideally automated through privileged access management solutions. Rotation limits the window of exposure from compromised credentials by ensuring stolen passwords eventually become invalid. However, hardcoded passwords in configuration files complicate rotation because applications must be updated with new credentials.
Secure credential storage alternatives include key management systems where applications retrieve credentials at runtime, environment variables providing credentials without hardcoding in files, encrypted configuration files with decryption keys managed separately, and certificate-based authentication eliminating password management. These approaches separate credentials from application code and configuration.
Privileged access management solutions specifically address service account security through password vaulting storing credentials centrally with encryption, just-in-time credential provisioning creating temporary credentials for service account sessions, automated password rotation changing credentials on schedules without manual intervention, and session monitoring recording service account activities for security review.
Managed service identities in cloud environments provide passwordless authentication for service accounts by using cloud platform identity systems. Applications running in Azure, AWS, or GCP can use platform-managed identities to authenticate to other cloud services without credentials, eliminating password management entirely.
The principle of least privilege should restrict service account permissions to minimum necessary for their functions. Service accounts should not have interactive login rights, should be restricted to specific source systems or IP addresses, and should have permissions limited to required resources. These restrictions limit damage from compromised accounts.
The auditor should recommend implementing privileged access management solutions for service account credential management, enabling password rotation with automated deployment to dependent systems, eliminating credentials from configuration files by using secure retrieval mechanisms, and restricting service account permissions following least privilege principles.
Question 178:
An IS auditor finds that the organization’s business continuity plan was developed five years ago and has not been updated to reflect recent cloud migrations and organizational restructuring. What is the MOST significant risk?
A) The plan may not reflect current IT infrastructure, business processes, or recovery requirements, rendering it ineffective during actual disasters and potentially increasing recovery time beyond acceptable levels
B) Plan documentation may need reformatting
C) Plan distribution may require updated contact lists
D) Plan storage location may need consideration
Answer: A
Explanation:
Business continuity plans become obsolete as IT infrastructure, business processes, organizational structures, and external dependencies evolve. Five-year-old plans for organizations that have undergone cloud migrations and restructuring are likely substantially outdated, creating risks that recovery procedures won’t work during actual disasters.
Cloud migration fundamentally changes recovery approaches because cloud environments use different architectures, management tools, access methods, and vendor dependencies than on-premises infrastructure. Recovery procedures for on-premises servers don’t apply to cloud instances. Backup and restore procedures differ between physical systems and cloud-based resources. Network configurations and connectivity requirements change. Documented recovery procedures based on old infrastructure are not just ineffective but may be dangerously misleading.
Organizational restructuring affects business continuity through changes in roles and responsibilities where individuals documented as responsible for recovery tasks may have left the organization or moved to different roles, department mergers or separations altering business process dependencies, reporting structure changes affecting escalation and decision-making paths, and priority shifts where business functions previously considered critical may have changed importance.
Business process evolution makes five-year-old continuity plans outdated. New products or services create dependencies not documented in old plans, process reengineering changes how work flows, regulatory changes impose new recovery requirements, and customer expectation changes affect what constitutes acceptable recovery times. Plans must reflect current business realities to ensure appropriate systems are prioritized for recovery.
Technology dependency changes accumulate over time. New applications deployed since plan development create undocumented dependencies, third-party service adoption adds external dependencies affecting recovery, system integrations create interconnections between systems that didn’t exist previously, and data volume growth affects backup and recovery time calculations.
Recovery time and recovery point objectives may no longer align with business requirements. Business changes might require faster recovery than old objectives specified, or conversely might allow longer recovery if business criticality decreased. Testing with current objectives is essential to validate achievability, but outdated plans test against obsolete targets.
Contact information obsolescence renders communication plans ineffective. Employee turnover means documented contacts have left, acquisitions or divestitures change organizational boundaries and vendor relationships, and vendor consolidation affects support contacts. During disasters, inability to reach key personnel or vendors extends recovery times.
The testing gap over five years without plan updates indicates testing either didn’t occur or findings weren’t incorporated. Testing typically identifies plan gaps and areas requiring updates. The absence of updates suggests either inadequate testing or failure to remediate identified issues.
The regulatory implications affect organizations in sectors with business continuity requirements. Financial institutions face regulatory expectations for current, tested continuity plans, healthcare organizations must demonstrate ability to maintain patient care continuity, and critical infrastructure providers have government-mandated continuity obligations. Outdated plans may constitute compliance violations.
The compounding effect of multiple changes means the plan’s obsolescence is likely more severe than any single change would cause. Cloud migration alone would require significant updates. Organizational restructuring alone would require updates. The combination potentially makes the plan largely irrelevant to current operations.
The auditor should recommend immediately initiating comprehensive business continuity plan updates reflecting current infrastructure, processes, and organization, conducting business impact analysis to validate recovery requirements, performing plan testing once updates complete, and establishing ongoing plan maintenance processes ensuring future updates occur as changes happen rather than waiting for major revisions.
Question 179:
During an audit of application development processes, an IS auditor finds that code reviews are optional and infrequently performed. What is the PRIMARY risk?
A) Security vulnerabilities, logic errors, and quality issues may not be detected before deployment, creating risks of production defects, security breaches, and increased maintenance costs
B) Code review documentation may be minimal
C) Development team scheduling may be more flexible
D) Code review tools may not require procurement
Answer: A
Explanation:
Code reviews represent one of the most effective techniques for identifying software defects, security vulnerabilities, and quality issues before code reaches production. Making reviews optional rather than mandatory allows problematic code to be deployed without independent verification, substantially increasing production defect risks.
Security vulnerability detection benefits particularly from code review because reviewers can identify issues like SQL injection vulnerabilities from improperly parameterized queries, cross-site scripting from inadequate input validation and output encoding, authentication and authorization flaws, cryptographic weaknesses, and sensitive data exposure. These vulnerabilities might not be apparent from functional testing but become obvious during code examination.
Logic error identification through review catches mistakes that function incorrectly under edge cases or specific conditions not covered by testing. Reviewers can spot incorrect calculations, missing error handling, race conditions, resource leaks, and incorrect assumptions. Early detection through review is far cheaper than discovering logic errors in production where they cause business impacts before being identified.
Quality issue detection including poor code structure, inadequate documentation, non-adherence to coding standards, and maintainability problems occurs through review. While these quality issues may not cause immediate failures, they create technical debt increasing future maintenance costs and making future changes riskier. Quality-focused reviews enforce standards ensuring code consistency across development teams.
The peer review value extends beyond finding defects to knowledge sharing where senior developers reviewing junior developer code provides mentoring, team members reviewing each other’s code share approaches and techniques, and cross-functional review spreads knowledge of different system components. These knowledge-sharing benefits improve overall team capability.
The cost-effectiveness of code review is well-established through research showing that finding and fixing defects during development is 10-100 times cheaper than finding them in production. The investment in review time is recovered many times over through avoided production issues, reduced maintenance, and decreased support costs. Optional reviews forego these cost savings.
Review thoroughness varies from informal peer reviews where developers simply show code to colleagues before committing, to formal inspections with structured processes, checklists, and metrics. Even lightweight reviews provide substantial benefits compared to no reviews, though formal processes with checklists covering security, reliability, maintainability, and standards compliance provide maximum benefit.
Automated code analysis tools complement but don’t replace manual reviews because tools detect specific patterns but miss logic errors, can’t assess architectural appropriateness, generate false positives requiring human judgment, and don’t provide knowledge sharing benefits. Organizations should use both automated scanning and human review for comprehensive coverage.
The cultural aspect of code review affects adoption. Organizations viewing reviews as criticism rather than collaborative improvement may face resistance. Successful review cultures emphasize learning over judgment, focus feedback on code rather than developers, recognize that all developers benefit from review including senior developers, and celebrate finding issues during review rather than treating them as failures.
The timing of reviews affects their effectiveness. Reviews before code integration prevent defective code from reaching shared repositories, while post-integration reviews may catch issues but after potentially affecting other developers. Review before pull request approval prevents defective code from merging into main branches.
The auditor should recommend establishing mandatory code review policies requiring review before production deployment, implementing automated code scanning tools to complement manual reviews, providing reviewer training in secure coding practices and common vulnerability patterns, and measuring code review metrics including review coverage, defect detection rates, and resolution times.
Question 180:
An IS auditor discovers that intrusion detection system alerts are not regularly reviewed by security personnel. What is the PRIMARY risk?
A) Security incidents may go undetected and unresponded to, allowing attacks to progress, data breaches to occur, and attackers to maintain persistent access without remediation
B) IDS system logs may consume storage space
C) IDS signature updates may need scheduling
D) IDS performance tuning may require occasional adjustment
Answer: A
Explanation:
Intrusion detection systems generate alerts indicating potential security incidents, but these alerts provide no security value without human review, investigation, and response. Failing to monitor IDS alerts renders the system ineffective, allowing attacks to progress undetected regardless of detection capabilities.
The attack progression timeline shows that most sophisticated attacks unfold over hours or days through phases including initial compromise, privilege escalation, lateral movement, and data exfiltration. Early-stage activities often trigger IDS alerts, providing opportunities to detect and stop attacks before significant damage. Without alert review, these early warnings are ignored, allowing attackers to complete their objectives uninterrupted.
Detection without response provides no security because identifying threats but taking no action doesn’t prevent harm. The security operations model requires continuous monitoring, alert triage, incident investigation, threat containment, and remediation. Breaking this chain at the monitoring step negates investment in detection technologies.
Alert fatigue from high false positive rates is often cited as reasons for not reviewing alerts, but this justifies improving alert quality rather than abandoning monitoring. IDS tuning to reduce false positives, risk-based alert prioritization to focus on critical alerts, and automated alert correlation to reduce noise are appropriate responses, while ignoring all alerts is not.
The mean time to detect (MTTD) and mean time to respond (MTTR) metrics measure security operations effectiveness. Industry research shows that undetected breaches persist for months on average, while detected breaches can be contained in hours or days. Organizations not reviewing IDS alerts have effectively infinite MTTD because detection never occurs despite technical detection capabilities.
Regulatory implications affect organizations in sectors with monitoring requirements. PCI-DSS requires monitoring and testing of security systems, HIPAA mandates information system activity review, and GDPR requires detecting personal data breaches. Failure to review IDS alerts may constitute compliance violations regardless of whether actual breaches occurred.
The security operations center function or equivalent is essential for managing security monitoring at scale. Dedicated security personnel with appropriate tools, processes, and training can efficiently review alerts, investigate incidents, and coordinate responses. Organizations lacking dedicated resources should consider managed security service providers rather than abandoning monitoring.
The auditor should recommend establishing formal security monitoring procedures requiring regular IDS alert review, implementing security information and event management (SIEM) solutions to centralize and correlate alerts, defining alert response procedures and escalation paths, and ensuring adequate staffing for continuous monitoring or engaging managed security services if internal resources are insufficient.
