Which term describes a safeguard or countermeasure used to mitigate risk; it may be technical, managerial or physical?

• A. Custodian
• B. Control
• C. Data Custodian
• D. Data Classification

Answer: (B)

A safeguard or countermeasure used to mitigate risk is called a control. Controls can be technical, managerial, or physical, and their purpose is to reduce either the likelihood of a threat succeeding or the impact if it does, bringing residual risk down to an acceptable level. This broad applicability across different types of safeguards is why it’s the best fit for the description. The other terms refer to people responsible for assets, or to a data handling activity, rather than to the protective measures themselves: a custodian is a person responsible for protection, a data custodian is a role focused on data management and protection, and data classification is the activity of labeling data by sensitivity, not a protective measure.