CISA Exam Dumps - Certified Information Systems Auditor

The biggest risk is reliance on inaccurate or low-quality legal/regulatory information, which could result in compliance failures. Other concerns (paid tier, provider, competitors) are secondary.

References (ISACA): ISACA Digital Trust Framework – Reliability of Data.

The best recommendation for a small IT web development company where developers must have write access to production is to remove production access from the developers. Production access is the ability to modify or update the live systems or applications that are used by customers or end users. Production access should be restricted to authorized and qualified personnel only, as any changes or errors in production can affect the functionality, performance, or security of the systems or applications. Developers should not have write access to production, as they may introduce bugs,vulnerabilities, or inconsistencies in the code that can compromise the quality or reliability of the systems or applications. The other options are not as effective as removing production access from the developers, as they do not address the root cause of the problem or provide the same benefits. Hiring another person to perform migration to production is a costly solution that can help segregate the roles and responsibilities of developers and migrators, but it does not remove production access from the developers. Implementing continuous monitoring controls is a good practice that can help detect and correct any issues or anomalies in production, but it does not remove production access from the developers. Performing a user access review for the development team is a detective control that can help verify and validate the access rights and privileges of developers, but it does not remove production access from the developers. References: CISA Review Manual (Digital Version), Chapter 3, Section 3.2

When information processing is outsourced, the contract should explicitly require the service provider to comply with applicable legal and regulatory requirements. ISACA guidance on third-party risk and outsourcing consistently emphasizes that contracts must address legal obligations, compliance responsibilities, and regulatory expectations because the enterprise remains accountable for the data and services even when they are handled by a third party.

Option C is the best answer because legal compliance is broader and more fundamental than operational specifics such as backup procedures or security administration details. ISACA states that enterprises remain responsible for safeguarding sensitive information and complying with legal and regulatory requirements regardless of what the contract says or which third party processes the data. Therefore, an auditor should expect the contract to expressly address compliance with those requirements.

Option A may be included in many outsourcing contracts, especially for critical services, but backup and recovery processes are service-level or operational matters. They are important, yet not as fundamental as requiring compliance with legal obligations. If the contract fails to address legal compliance, the organization faces regulatory, liability, and governance exposure even if backups are adequate.

Option B is incorrect because audit objectives are normally defined by the auditor or audit plan, not by the outsourcing contract. The contract may include audit rights, access rights, reporting rights, or the right to inspect controls, but it would not typically define the auditor’s objectives. ISACA outsourcing guidance highlights right-to-audit clauses rather than audit objectives as contract content.

Option D may also appear in the contract through security requirements, roles, and responsibilities, but it is narrower than legal compliance. Security administration processes matter, yet they are subordinate to the overarching requirement that outsourced processing comply with applicable law, regulation, and contractual obligations.

So, the strongest answer is C because an outsourced processing contract must specify compliance with legal requirements, which is a core expectation in ISACA’s third-party governance and risk guidance.

References (Official ISACA):

ISACA Journal, A Risk-Based Management Approach to Third-Party Data Security Risk and Compliance — enterprises remain responsible for complying with legal and regulatory requirements even when using third parties.

ISACA Journal, Critical Information Systems Processes — contracts should include legal obligations and responsibilities.

ISACA Journal, Ensuring Vendor Compliance and Third-Party Risk Mitigation — contracts should include pertinent clauses for compliance requirements.

ISACA, Cloud Computing Evolution and Regulation in the Financial Services Industry — outsourcing arrangements should include audit and access rights in line with regulatory requirements.

The correct answer is B. Determine if project goals were met as expected.

The primary purpose of a post-implementation review is to determine whether the project achieved its intended objectives, delivered the expected business value, met requirements, and produced the expected benefits. For a critical IT project, the most important audit focus is not only whether the project was delivered on time or within budget, but whether it actually achieved what the organization expected from it.

ISACA’s CISA Exam Content Outline specifically includes Post-implementation Review under Domain 3 and states that CISA tasks include conducting post-implementation reviews to determine whether project deliverables, controls, and requirements are met.

Option A is useful but not the primary focus. Business representation on the steering committee supports good governance, but it does not prove that the project achieved its objectives.

Option C is also important, but on-time and on-budget delivery does not necessarily mean project success. A project can be delivered on time and within budget but still fail to meet business requirements.

Option D is evidence of formal project closure, but stakeholder signoff alone does not provide enough assurance that the project goals and expected benefits were achieved.

ISACA also notes that benefit realization is measured after implementation and that a post-implementation review is usually recommended to quantify actual benefits from a program.

The best answer is B. To establish the organization’s accountability for the use and protection of personal information.

ISACA privacy guidance emphasizes accountability as a core privacy principle and describes privacy notices as documents that explain how personal information is collected, used, shared, retained, and protected. A privacy notice is fundamentally about transparency and accountability to data subjects regarding the organization’s handling of personal information.

Option A is incorrect because a privacy notice is not primarily a liability shield. Option C is incorrect because a privacy notice may disclose sharing practices, but it is not primarily to obtain blanket approval for sale of personal information. Option D is also incorrect because compliance of controls is a broader privacy governance objective; the notice itself is mainly for transparent disclosure and accountability.

References (Official ISACA):

ISACA, Privacy Notice.

ISACA Privacy Resource Center.

ISACA Journal, Creating a Compliant and Accountable Data Culture.

ISACA, Using ISACA Privacy Principles for GDPR Compliance.

 Following a configuration management process to maintain applications is the primary reason for ensuring proper change control. Configuration management is a process of identifying, documenting, controlling, and verifying the configuration items and their interrelationships within an IT system or environment. Following a configuration management process can help to ensure that any changes to the applications are authorized, tested, documented, and tracked throughout their lifecycle. This will help to prevent unauthorized or improper changes that could affect the functionality, performance, or security of the applications. The other options are not the primary reasons for following a configuration management process, but rather possible benefits or outcomes of doing so. References:

CISA Review Manual (Digital Version), Chapter 4, Section 4.3.31

CISA Review Questions, Answers and Explanations Database, Question ID 225

The best compensating control is performing a bank reconciliation. Duplicate payments are a financial processing error that results in overpayment or duplicate disbursement. ISACA materials explicitly cite duplicate payments as an example of information errors that create cost risk. A bank reconciliation is the best compensating detective control among the choices because it helps identify duplicate disbursements by comparing recorded payments with actual bank activity.

Option B is correct because reconciliation is the control most likely to detect that a payment was processed twice. Once identified, management can investigate and recover the erroneous payment.

Option A is not the best answer because hash totals are generally used to verify data integrity of fields, not to compensate for duplicate payment processing.

Option D is also not the best answer because control totals can help identify completeness or reasonableness during batch processing, but they are less directly effective at detecting duplicate disbursements already posted through an online payment process.

Option C is weak because manual receipting of payments does not directly address duplication of outbound payments.

Therefore, B is the best answer because bank reconciliation is the most effective compensating control among the options for detecting duplicate payment errors. The exact match to this exam-style question is based on standard CISA control reasoning, with ISACA support that duplicate payments are a recognized cost-risk example.

References (Official ISACA):

ISACA Journal, A Framework for Estimating ROI of Automated Internal Controls — cites duplicate payments and overpayments as examples of cost risk caused by information errors.

ISACA training and audit fundamentals resources — support the use of detective and compensating controls in audit practice.

 In an online application, data architecture provides the most information about the transaction audit trail, as it describes how data are created, stored, processed, accessed and exchanged among different components of the application. Data architecture includes data models, schemas, dictionaries, metadata, standards and policies that define the structure, quality, integrity, security and governance of data. Data architecture can help the IS auditor to trace the origin, flow, transformation and destination of data in an online transaction, and to identify the key data elements, attributes and relationships that are relevant for audit purposes. A system/process flowchart is a graphical representation of the sequence of steps or activities that are performed by a system or process. A system/process flowchart can provide some information about the transaction audit trail, but it is not as detailed or comprehensive as data architecture. A system/process flowchart shows the inputs, outputs, decisions and actions of a system or process, but it does not show the data elements, attributes and relationships that are involved in each step or activity. A file layout is a specification of the format and structure of a data file. A file layout can provide some information about the transaction audit trail, but it is not as detailed or comprehensive as data architecture. A file layout shows the fields, types, lengths and positions of data in a file, but it does not show the origin, flow, transformation and destination of data in an online transaction. Source code documentation is a description of the logic, functionality and purpose of a program or module written in a programming language. Source code documentation can provide some information about the transaction audit trail, but it is not as detailed or comprehensive as data architecture. Source code documentation shows the instructions, variables and parameters that are used to perform calculations and operations on data, but it does not show the data elements, attributes and relationships that are involved in each instruction or operation. References: CISA Review Manual (Digital Version) 1, Chapter 4: Information Systems Operations and Business Resilience, Section 4.2: Data Administration Practices.