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ACCA Strategic Professional · Advanced Performance Management · Technology and information systems

Brightmoor Bank holds customer data used in its balanced scorecard analytics. A phishing email lets an attacker obtain a finance analyst's credentials, and the attacker downloads a customer file over several weeks without being noticed. Which combination of controls would best have both reduced the likelihood of this breach and shortened the time to detect it?

Multi-factor authentication with least-privilege access, combined with monitoring of unusual downloads. The first two prevent stolen credentials from giving wide access, and monitoring detects abnormal exfiltration quickly. Backups only help recovery, and training or extra storage addresses neither prevention nor detection adequately.

  1. AAnnual staff training only, plus larger data warehouse capacity
  2. BMulti-factor authentication and least-privilege access, together with monitoring of unusual download activityCorrect
  3. CDaily backups and an off-site recovery plan
  4. DEncryption of the finance budget spreadsheet only

Explanation

MFA and least privilege reduce the chance that stolen credentials give broad access (preventive), while monitoring of abnormal downloads is a detective control shortening detection time. Backups aid recovery but do not prevent or detect exfiltration. Training alone is weaker and storage capacity is irrelevant.

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