CISSP Practice Question: What would MOST likely happen if a software development team prioritizes speed…

Correct Answer: A. Increased vulnerability exposure

Explanation (CISSP Manager Logic):

Prioritizing speed over security creates technical debt and bypasses critical controls like code reviews and security testing. From a risk management perspective, this trade-off increases the likelihood of a breach, which can lead to catastrophic financial and reputational damage far outweighing any short-term gains.

By prioritizing security, you:

• Reduce the long-term cost of remediation and patching.
• Protect the organization from legal and regulatory non-compliance.
• Ensure the integrity and availability of the production environment.

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

• B: Faster time to market is a business goal, but it is unsustainable if the product is fundamentally insecure.
• C: Customer trust is earned through reliability and data protection, both of which are compromised by vulnerabilities.
• D: Initial cost savings are negated by the high expense of incident response and post-release bug fixes.

Think like a manager:

Security must be integrated into the SDLC from the beginning (Shift Left) because the cost of fixing a vulnerability increases exponentially as the project moves toward production.