A bank stores and processes sensitive privacy information related to home loans. However, auditing has never been enabled on the system. What is the first step that the bank should take before…

A vulnerability scan assesses system weaknesses and is unrelated to the process of safely enabling the audit feature itself.

Determining the impact of enabling auditing is the mandatory first step because it identifies how the feature will affect system performance, storage capacity, and operations before any commitment is made. Without this impact assessment, the bank risks degrading system availability or generating unmanageable log volumes, especially on a sensitive financial system that has never had auditing enabled.

A cost/benefit analysis is a valid step, but it can only be performed accurately after the impact is already understood - making it second, not first.

Allocating staffing funds is a planning activity that follows both the impact assessment and the decision to proceed, not a prerequisite first step.