CISSP Practice Question: What would MOST likely happen if an organization does not regularly update…

Correct Answer: A. Increased vulnerability to attacks

Explanation (CISSP Manager Logic):

Failing to update protocols creates technical debt and security gaps that adversaries exploit through known vulnerabilities. From a business perspective, outdated standards weaken the defensive posture, directly increasing the risk of data breaches and operational downtime.

By maintaining current protocols, you:

• Reduce the attack surface against evolving threat vectors.
• Ensure alignment with industry best practices and security frameworks.
• Protect the integrity and confidentiality of organizational data.

While the other options are relevant, they fall short because:

• B: Outdated protocols typically lead to non-compliance with modern regulatory requirements like GDPR or PCI-DSS.
• C: Security updates rarely improve user experience and often introduce friction through stricter authentication.
• D: Skipping updates saves immediate costs but leads to higher long-term expenses through incident response.

Think like a manager:

Proactive lifecycle management is a core component of due care. Managers must balance operational continuity with the strategic necessity of patching to mitigate enterprise risk.