Which of the following professionals is responsible for starting the Certification & Accreditation (C&A) process? Response:

The Information System Owner is ultimately responsible for the overall lifecycle of an information system, including its development, operation, maintenance, and eventual decommissioning, and is therefore responsible for initiating the C&A (now RMF Authorization) process to ensure the system's security and compliance throughout its operational life. They typically formally request the assessment and authorization.

The Authorizing Official (AO) is responsible for making the final decision to authorize (or deny authorization) a system, not for initiating the process.

A Chief Risk Officer (CRO) oversees enterprise-wide risk management but typically does not initiate individual system-level C&A processes.

A Chief Information Officer (CIO) has overall responsibility for IT, but the specific initiation of C&A for a given system falls to the system's dedicated owner.