nerdexam
Isaca

CISM · Question #35

Which of the following is the BEST indicator of an emerging incident?

The correct answer is C. Customer complaints about lack of website availability. Customer complaints about website unavailability are the best indicator of an emerging incident as they directly signify a disruption to services.

Submitted by zhang_li· Apr 18, 2026Information Security Incident Management

Question

Which of the following is the BEST indicator of an emerging incident?

Options

  • AA weakness identified within an organization's information systems
  • BAttempted patching of systems resulting in errors
  • CCustomer complaints about lack of website availability
  • DA recent security incident at an industry competitor

How the community answered

(42 responses)
  • A
    2% (1)
  • B
    12% (5)
  • C
    79% (33)
  • D
    7% (3)

Why each option

Customer complaints about website unavailability are the best indicator of an emerging incident as they directly signify a disruption to services.

AA weakness identified within an organization's information systems

A weakness is a potential vulnerability, but not necessarily an active incident; it requires remediation but doesn't signify an ongoing attack or disruption.

BAttempted patching of systems resulting in errors

Patching errors are operational issues that need troubleshooting, but they do not inherently indicate a security incident or external attack.

CCustomer complaints about lack of website availabilityCorrect

Customer complaints regarding website availability directly indicate a service disruption that is impacting external users, often a symptom of an ongoing attack, misconfiguration, or failure that requires immediate incident response. This is a clear, actionable signal of an active problem.

DA recent security incident at an industry competitor

A security incident at a competitor is a valuable threat intelligence point for proactive measures, but it is not an indicator of an incident within one's own organization.

Concept tested: Incident identification and indicators

Source: https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialPublications/NIST.SP.800-61r2.pdf

Topics

#Incident Detection#Incident Indicators#Service Availability#Early Warning Signs

Community Discussion

No community discussion yet for this question.

Full CISM Practice