
CFE exam practice question: daily practice for the Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) exam — domain: Fraud Prevention and Deterrence.
Question
A mid-sized company finds that employees who change roles frequently retain old system privileges and can both create and approve vendor payments. Which control is most effective to prevent unauthorized accumulation of system privileges after role changes?
Show the answer and explanation
Correct answer: A. Conducting periodic user access recertification reviews
Periodic user access recertification directly targets the problem by systematically reviewing and removing inappropriate privileges after role changes, ensuring access rights match current responsibilities. Mandatory vacation and job rotation can help detect ongoing fraud but do not reliably remove accumulated access rights tied to role changes. Segregation of duties is a strong preventive control but does not by itself address legacy permissions that persist when roles change unless paired with regular access reviews. Multi-factor authentication strengthens login security against credential compromise but does not prevent excessive or outdated authorizations from remaining assigned.
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