Prioritize eliminating or avoiding the risk at its source: What does the mitigation hierarchy direct them to

A risk mitigation hierarchy directs teams to eliminate or avoid the risk at its source first, before weaker controls, transfer, or acceptance.

The question

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1. Transfer the risk to an insurer immediately, so the team can proceed without redesigning the system's data flows or logic.

   Plausible because transfer is a valid treatment, but the hierarchy places it below elimination and reduction.
2. Prioritize eliminating or avoiding the risk at its source before relying on downstream controls, transfer, or acceptance of it. ✓

   Correct: a mitigation hierarchy favors removing or avoiding the risk first, resorting to lesser controls only when elimination is not feasible.
3. Accept every low-probability risk by default, reserving deeper analysis only for harms rated high in both probability and severity.

   Plausible as triage, but acceptance is a last resort, not the hierarchy's first move.
4. Add user-facing warnings as the primary control, on the view that disclosure resolves most of the severe risks the matrix surfaces.

   Plausible since warnings help, but disclosure is a weak downstream control, not elimination at the source.

How to remember it

A risk mitigation hierarchy directs teams to eliminate or avoid the risk at its source first, before weaker controls, transfer, or acceptance.

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