Whether you are a beginner just stepping into a career in GRC or a professional preparing for a GRC interview, you are in the right place. After thorough research and expert guidance. I have compiled some most frequently asked GRC interview Questions and I am sure that they will definitely help you to crack your interview.

In most interviews, the interviewer usually starts by asking some basic questions to understand whether the candidate has a foundational understanding or not. Therefore, it’s important to have a clear grasp of the basics—such as what GRC is and why it’s important.

But don’t worry! In this blog, we’ll cover all these topics in detail, along with practical examples to help you understand better and answer confidently. We’ll begin with some basic questions and gradually move on to more advanced ones. So, let’s get started!

Q.1. What is your understanding about GRC?

GRC stands for Governance, Risk, and Compliance. In this blog, we’ll understand each of these components one by one with real-life examples. So, let’s begin by first understanding Governance.

Governance: It is a set of rules, policies, and processes that ensures corporate activities are aligned   to support business goals.

For Example: Think of governance as parenting. A parent creates a daily routine for their child—wake up on time, attend school, complete homework, play responsibly, and sleep early. This is governance because the parent is setting rules and expectations to monitor behaviour and guide the child.

Similarly, an organization establishes rules and policies to ensure everyone follows a structured process. This helps create value within the organization. The presence of policies, strategies, organizational structures, roles and responsibilities (matrices), and performance measurements are all examples of a well-defined system—this is what we refer to as good governance.

Now why it is important because through governance, organizations can identify issues, set clear rules, and implement processes to effectively resolve them.

Risk: It means managing risk to an acceptable level.

For example: it is a system by which we identify, analyze, evaluate ,read the risk the risk and ultimate goal is to reduce the risk at acceptable level because the risk can not be eliminate.

Compliance: Compliance means adhering to the rules, policies and laws set forth by industries or government agencies.

For example: Imagine you’re in school, and the teacher says, “No phones allowed during class.” If you follow that rule and keep your phone in your bag, you’re being compliant. Now think about a company. If the government says, “You must pay taxes on time and protect customer data,” and the company follows those rules, that’s compliance in action

Q.2. What is the Difference between Secrecy VS Privacy?

  • Privacy: Privacy is a state of information limited to individual.

For example: Banking details, personal chats, call records, medical history etc.

  • Secrecy: Secrecy is a state of information limited to enterprise or organization.

For example: Internal business strategies, organizational structure, financial reports, proprietary technology etc.

Q.3. What is Audit ? How many types of audits do we have in the organizations?

An audit is a systematic and independent examination of records, processes, systems, or operations within an organization to ensure accuracy, compliance, efficiency, and risk control.

For Example: You can imagine An audit is like a health check-up for an organization. It’s a detailed review of the company’s records, processes, and systems to make sure everything is working properly, rules are being followed, and nothing is going wrong behind the scenes. If an organization has certain internal policies in place and wants to assess whether those policies are being followed correctly, an audit process is used to evaluate and verify compliance.

Types of Audits

There are mainly 3 types of audits

  • First Party : Internal audit
  • Second Party: Vendor audit
  • Third Party: Audit done by independent body

First-Party Audit:

First-Party audit is also called the internal audit. It is an audit performed within the organization using its own auditing resources to evaluate internal controls, risk management, and operational efficiency. You can imagine it as the eyes and ears of the management. Internal auditors report directly to the board. They audit based on the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) agreed upon by the stakeholders, and not based on certification requirements.

For example:

If a company has a change management process that is supposed to work as per the SOP approved by stakeholders, then I will use the primary document—i.e., the change management SOP—and verify whether the team is following the process correctly. Suppose the SOP mentions that a change should be closed within 2 or 3 days. I will pick a few samples and check whether those change were indeed closed within the specified timeframe. Through this process, we assess the presence or absence of controls, identify risks associated with the process, and provide an independent report to the board.

Second-party audit:

 A second-party audit is a vendor audit. In a second-party audit, we audit the vendors.

For example:

suppose your organisation has a vendor management team and is planning to onboard AWS services. Before onboarding this service, you will assess vendors to ensure they comply with your organisation’s requirements. We have a dedicated team that audits vendors to ensure they comply with company rules and regulations.

Third-party audit: It is an independent audit conducted by an external organization it is not directly involved with organization or its vendors.

For example:

If your organization is aiming the ISO 27001 certification then a regulatory authorities or certified external agency will conduct the third party audit to  verify whether your organization meets the required industry standard and compliance frameworks.

Q.4.How to implement information security plan in the organization?

This is most frequently asked question during the interview and is a favourite  among interviewer. Most interviewers ask this question to test your practical understanding .So try to give the answer of this question in detail manner in the form of pointer I have broken down the answer of this question in pointer ,as I mentioned below.

  • Conduct a risk assessment:

Conduct a risk assessment to evaluate the current state of the organization.

  • Perform a gap analysis:

Perform a gap analysis between current and target states to potential areas of additional resource investment.

  • Align with business goals:

Map the alignment with the current information security strategies and program with business needs and corporate goals.

  • Document risks in a risk register:

Document all information security business risks within a risk register

Q.5. What is Risk Management? What are the phases of Risk Management?

Consider yourself in charge of a company. There are always potential problems, such as a software bugs a hacker targeting your system, or an employee clicking on a phishing email these all loop holes or vulnerabilities we can consider as risk and the process of identifying and controlling these risk is called risk management.

There are five basic steps that are taken to manage risk; these steps are referred to as the risk management process.

Identify the Risk: This is the first phase of the risk management process, in which we identify all the possible scenarios that could lead to risks and negatively affect the organization. These risks may include Legal risks, Environmental risks, Market risks, Regulatory risks, etc.

  • Legal Risk: These are risks related to breaking laws. For example, if your company uses someone else’s software or content without their permission, you might face legal consequences.
  • Environmental Risk: These are risks caused by natural events or environmental damage. For instance, floods, earthquakes, or a fire in your data centre could disrupt your business operations.
  • Market Risk: These risks come from changes in the market — such as shifts in the economy, customer behaviour, or competition. For example, if your competitors suddenly offer cheaper products, it could result in a drop in your sales.
  • Regulatory Risk: These are risks that arise from not complying with government rules or industry standards. For instance, if you’re handling customer data but fail to follow data protection laws like GDPR, your company could face significant fines.

Analyse the Risk: once risk identified we measure the level of impact there are two way to measure one is qualitative and another is quantitative.

  • Qualitative: It is a non-numeric way of analysing risk.

For example: if we don’t update the software and never use strong password for important credential then there is a high chance of hacking.

  • Quantitative: It is a numeric way of analysing risk.

For example if cyberattack happen then we could loss 30 lakhs.

Evaluate the Risk: Once risks are identified and analyzed , We evaluate the risk in this phase we prioritize the risk .

For example:

                           Risk A=High chance + High Risk=High Priority

                           Risk B=Low Chance + Low Risk=Low Priority

Treat the Risk: After evaluating the risks, the next step is to decide how to handle them, This is called risk treatment. We can avoid the risk ,mitigate the risk, transfer the risk and accept the risk.

Monitor the Risk: In this phase we monitor the risk because the risk can change over the time.

  • is there any new risk?
  • our solution is working correctly or not ?
  • Has the existing risk increased or decreased?

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Q.6. What is included in the information security program?

The Primary goal of business-related information security program is to protect data and to monitor rules and regulations.

This Information security program involves :

  • Policies and rules
  • Risk Management
  • Access Controls
  • Incident Response plan
  • Training awareness program
  • Compliance checks

Policies and rules: This is a written book, or we can say that it is a rules book approved by the management and followed by everyone. This book outlines what employees can and cannot do with company data.

For example: Don’t share your personal info, like your password, and don’t use company credentials without permission, and use only approved software, etc.

Risk Management: In risk management, the management team tries to find out all possible threats to prevent the risk, which can occur through hackers, employee mistakes, or system failures. They plan the strategy to either avoid, reduce or prepare for those risks.

Access Controls: Access control ensure that only authorized individual can access the information. to control these access, we can use password and OTPs etc. it is like putting key in room so that only person who has key can access it. We need this controls to protect sensitive data and to track who access what and when.

Incident Response plan: This is a step- by-step guide that helps a company quickly respond when something goes wrong. the main goal of this to minimize damage, recover fast, prevent it from happening again.it helps the company to create strategy so that, company do not panic at the time of cyber emergency and can act quickly.

Training Awareness Program: This awareness program involves training the employees so that they can stay safe online. We can organise the workshop or online training programme to train them . This awareness training includes how to create a strong password , how to identify phishing emails and what to do if they suspect a cyber threat. Training awareness programmes are all about keeping company data safe.

Compliance checks: It means making sure the company’s employees are following the rules and regulations related to data privacy and security. There are legal standards; if they don’t follow them, then they can face legal trouble.

Q.7. What are ITGC controls?

ITGC stands for Information Technology general controls. ITGC controls are rules, processes, and checks put in place to ensure that a company’s IT systems such as software, hardware, and data operate safely and correctly.

They are part of internal controls that assist in protecting data and ensuring that a company’s technology is dependable and secure.

Q.8. What are the important components of ITGC implementation?

  • People: Since people are the foundation of ITGC, it is essential for them to have a basic understanding of it. For example, if a new policy is created but the employees have no knowledge about it, how can they govern or follow it if they are unaware of it? Therefore, the organisation needs to run training programmes to educate the people, ensuring that policies are properly understood, followed, and applied.
  • Process: Processes are basically step-by-step ways of doing things in an organized manner. they assist in to make sure tasks like giving access, handling changes, or taking backups are done properly and securely in ITGC. Without clear processes, mistakes can happen easily. That’s why having well-defined processes is super important for smooth and safe or secure operations.
  • Technology: In terms of ITGC, technology refers to the tools, systems, software, and platforms used to apply, monitor, and enforce IT General Controls (ITGC). Technology helps automate and enforce the controls effectively and efficiently to reduce the human errors.

Q.9 How to drive the Risk-Based Protection Program in Organization?

When we drive the Risk-Based Protection Program in an organisation, there are a few key steps to consider:

  • First, identify the most important assets of the organization and understand the business goal.
  • After identifying the business goals, we do the assessment to find out the existing threats, such as how likely they are and how much potential harm they may create.
  • After getting the result of the assessment, we prioritise the risk, and we apply controls like access control, encryption, and monitoring tools at the highest risk.
  • We should make sure the programme aligns with compliance requirements and the company’s risk appetite.
  • We should keep monitoring risks and updating controls to improve security and stay compliant.

Q.10. Let’s assume you have been appointed to our new project. And in this project we are building an enterprise  application for one customer. How do you integrate security in this project?

If I am assigned to this project, then I would take the security-first approach from the beginning of the software development life cycle (SDLC). Basically, the SDLC includes some phases which we follow when we work on any project. It assists in reducing risk, maintaining quality and meeting customer needs.

  • Discovery: At this phase we will gather the security requirements like authentication ,access control, and data protection needs.
  • Design: We should follow the secure design principles such as least privilege ,defence in depth , and proper architecture planning.
  • Development: Always try to write secure code to avoid the common vulnerabilities.
  • Testing & QA: Do testing to ensure the security along with functional testing.
  • Release: Before releasing any app or software always configure the servers securely using HTTPs, secure APIs and environment variables for secrets.
  • Monitoring: After setting up all things we will work on monitoring it to detect suspicious activities we will try to keep everything updated with patches and ensure regular security reviews.

During the SDLC lifecycle, we handle many things because the project involves an enterprise application. However, since the question is specifically about integrating security, we will focus on that aspect. While the SDLC covers areas like budgeting, tools, application design, coding, functional testing, and monitoring, security should be integrated throughout each phase along with these other components.

Conclusion

Knowing the fundamentals of governance, risk, and compliance will make it easier to prepare for a GRC interview. To get you started, we discussed some of the most often requested interview questions in this article. You can succeed in this sector and pass your GRC interview if you have the necessary information and self-assurance.

If you found this Top 10 GRC Interview questions and answers helpful, don’t forget to share it with others preparing for GRC roles, and feel free to drop your questions or thoughts in the comments below!