ISC Contingency Management Practice Test 2 — 15 Questions

Question 1

During a BCP planning session, the executive team is debating the 'Maximum Tolerable Downtime' (MTD) for a legacy internal application. What is the correct way to define this metric?

Accepted Answer

The total duration of time that an organization can tolerate a business process being unavailable.. MTD is the total time a process can be down before the organization suffers catastrophic/irreversible harm.

Answer

The maximum acceptable age of data in the event of a system crash.

Answer

The time taken to fail over to the secondary site during a disaster.

Answer

The time required to restore the application from the latest tape backup.

Question 2

Your organization has decided to use a 'Cloud Disaster Recovery' service. The vendor provides a 'Pilot Light' strategy. What does this mean for your organization's recovery capability?

Accepted Answer

Core services are running, and the remaining infrastructure can be scaled up on demand.. A pilot light maintains critical core components (e.g., database) in a running state, while application tiers are spun up on-demand during a disaster.

Answer

A complete replica of the production environment is running 24/7.

Answer

The environment only exists as data snapshots in cold storage.

Answer

The environment is hosted on-premises and fails over to a secondary data center.

Question 3

An ISSMP is reviewing the Business Continuity Plan (BCP) for a critical application. Which TWO of the following factors should be considered when defining the 'Maximum Tolerable Downtime' (MTD)?

Accepted Answer

Legal and regulatory compliance requirements.. Option A is correct because MTD must reflect any legal or regulatory obligations that cap how long the critical application may be unavailable; exceeding mandated recovery windows can trigger fines, sanctions, or breach-of-contract liability, so compliance requirements directly constrain the tolerable downtime. Option C is correct because MTD is fundamentally a business-driven threshold tied to how much revenue loss and financial impact the organization can absorb before the outage becomes unacceptable, making financial tolerance a primary input to the MTD calculation. Options B, D, and E are not defining factors for MTD: hardware replacement cost is a recovery cost consideration, spare-parts availability is a logistical recovery capability, and manual workaround staffing is an operational continuity tactic — none of these establish the maximum time the business can tolerate the application being down.

Answer

Total expected cost of hardware replacement.

Answer

The current availability of spare parts in the data center.

Answer

The number of employees required to perform manual workarounds.

Question 4

In a decentralized organization, which approach to BCP management ensures both local agility and global alignment?

Accepted Answer

A federated model with a centralized governance framework.. A federated model allows individual business units to customize plans to their specific needs while adhering to a common global framework/policy.

Answer

Leaving BCP entirely to the discretion of local department managers.

Answer

A strictly centralized command-and-control model.

Answer

Outsourcing the entire BCP function to a single managed service provider.

Question 5

Which THREE of the following are essential components of a robust Crisis Management Plan?

Accepted Answer

Clearly defined crisis team roles and responsibilities.. A robust Crisis Management Plan requires clearly defined crisis team roles and responsibilities (A) so that each member knows exactly who does what during an incident, preventing confusion and duplicated effort. It also needs procedures for activating the crisis management team (B), specifying the triggers, authority, and escalation path that put the plan into motion. Pre-determined communication protocols for external stakeholders (D) are essential to control messaging to customers, regulators, media, and partners, protecting reputation and meeting disclosure obligations. An inventory of software licenses (C) is an asset-management detail, not a crisis response component, and granular technical steps for server restoration (E) belong to IT disaster recovery or business continuity runbooks rather than the strategic crisis management plan.

Answer

An inventory of all software licenses held by the organization.

Answer

Granular technical steps for server restoration.

Question 6

During a BIA review, you need to identify critical assets and their recovery requirements. Which TWO of the following inputs are essential for this classification process?

Accepted Answer

Interviews with business process owners.. The BIA requires both understanding of the process importance and the technical dependencies (what systems are actually used).

Answer

Current data center power consumption logs.

Answer

The organization's current IT procurement strategy.

Answer

Employee performance review records.

Question 7

Which TWO of the following are primary risks associated with an 'asynchronous' data replication strategy?

Accepted Answer

The RPO will always be greater than zero.. Option C is correct because asynchronous replication acknowledges writes at the primary site before they are committed at the remote site, so any failure between the write and its replication leaves a gap in the replicated data, meaning the recovery point objective (RPO) is inherently greater than zero. Option D is correct because, since the secondary copy lags behind the primary, a failover can expose data divergence or loss of the most recent transactions that were never transmitted or applied. Option A is not a primary risk of asynchronous replication specifically, since bandwidth consumption depends on change rate and scheduling rather than the asynchronous model itself, and replication is typically throttled or batched. Option B is incorrect because incompatible storage protocols are an interoperability/misconfiguration concern, not an inherent risk of asynchronous replication. Option E is incorrect because asynchronous replication is designed to avoid adding latency to the primary application's write path, unlike synchronous replication.

Answer

Excessive consumption of bandwidth during peak hours.

Answer

Total system failure due to incompatible storage protocols.

Answer

Increased network latency on the primary application.

Question 8

Which THREE of the following strategies should be included in a 'Disaster Recovery Program Oversight' function to ensure long-term viability?

Accepted Answer

Annual validation of the BIA to ensure it reflects current business priorities.. Oversight involves continuous validation through testing, alignment with changing business goals, and periodic audits of the documentation.

Answer

Mandating the use of specific hardware vendors for all offices.

Answer

Standardization of server naming conventions across all data centers.

Question 9

When designing a Disaster Recovery Program, which THREE of the following represent common 'single points of failure' that must be addressed?

Accepted Answer

Key-person dependency for initiating the disaster declaration.. Option A is correct because key-person dependency for initiating the disaster declaration is a classic single point of failure: if only one individual knows the criteria, has the authority, or can reach the call tree, the disaster declaration is delayed or never made, so DR plans require alternate declarers, documented thresholds, and out-of-band contact methods. Option B is correct because dependence on a single, non-redundant telecommunications provider for data replication means a carrier outage, fiber cut, or provider failure halts replication entirely, leaving the recovery site with stale data; mitigation requires diverse carriers, diverse physical paths, and replication monitoring. Option C is correct because reliance on a single physical location for primary and backup storage defeats geographic separation, so one fire, flood, or power event destroys both copies; backups must be stored at an alternate site or in a separate region/cloud with independent power and network. Option D is not a single point of failure: standardized ERP software is a common, supportable platform and does not by itself create an unrecoverable dependency, though it may need HA configuration. Option E is not a single point of failure either: automated patching tools are operational management software, and their failure delays patching rather than causing a disaster or preventing recovery.

Answer

Use of standardized enterprise resource planning software.

Answer

The use of automated server patching tools.

Question 10

Which TWO of the following are effective ways to improve 'Crisis Management Leadership' effectiveness during an incident?

Accepted Answer

Ensuring a dedicated communications officer manages stakeholder messaging.. Leadership requires clear delegation and effective, structured communication to prevent panic and ensure well-informed decisions.

Answer

Removing all documentation to force teams to think creatively.

Answer

Ignoring external media requests to focus only on technical repair.

Answer

Requiring all employees to attend weekly disaster drills.

Question 11

You are the ISSMP for a regional hospital network. The CIO wants assurance that the emergency department's clinical information system can be recovered within its maximum tolerable downtime (MTD) of 30 minutes. The system runs on a three-tier architecture with a relational database. Which recovery strategy BEST satisfies the MTD requirement?

Accepted Answer

Active-active database cluster across two data centers with synchronous replication and automated failover. The hospital's 30-minute MTD demands a solution with near-zero recovery time and minimal data loss. An active-active cluster with synchronous replication and automated failover provides continuous availability and rapid recovery, meeting the MTD. Warm, cold, and reciprocal strategies involve manual steps and longer recovery times that would exceed the MTD and risk patient safety.

Answer

Cold site with tape backups stored offsite and a documented restoration procedure

Answer

Warm site with nightly database backups and 4-hour hardware delivery SLA

Answer

Reciprocal agreement with a neighboring hospital to use their systems during a disaster

Question 12

An ISSMP is reviewing the organization's business continuity plan (BCP). The plan defines recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs) for critical business processes. The internal audit team has asked for evidence that the BCP will actually work during a disruption. Which action provides the MOST reliable evidence that the BCP is effective?

Accepted Answer

Perform a full-scale exercise that activates recovery sites and measures actual recovery times against RTO/RPO. A full-scale exercise is the most rigorous test because it activates recovery sites, restores systems, and measures actual performance against RTO and RPO. It exposes technical and procedural gaps that document reviews, interviews, and tabletops cannot. For audit evidence, actual measured recovery times provide objective proof that the BCP can meet its objectives during a real disruption.

Answer

Review the BCP document for completeness and sign-off by all department heads

Answer

Interview key personnel to confirm they understand their roles during a disruption

Answer

Conduct a tabletop exercise with senior management and document the discussion

Question 13

An ISSMP is developing a contingency plan for a critical e-commerce platform. The organization wants to ensure that the plan addresses both business process recovery and technology recovery. Which TWO of the following components are essential to include in the contingency plan? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Disaster recovery plan (DRP) procedures for restoring technology infrastructure and applications. A complete contingency plan integrates business and technology recovery. The BIA identifies critical processes and their recovery requirements, while the DRP details how to restore the technology that supports those processes. Together, they ensure that recovery efforts are prioritized and executed effectively. Network diagrams, marketing plans, and hardware budgets are supporting artifacts but are not essential components of the contingency plan itself.

Answer

Marketing plan for communicating with customers after a disaster

Answer

Annual budget for IT hardware refresh

Answer

Detailed network diagrams of the primary data center only

Question 14

Your organization runs its order-management platform in an active-active configuration across two data centers, with a third site reserved for disaster recovery. During a quarterly BCP exercise, the CIO asks you to define the maximum acceptable time that transaction data may be irretrievably lost if the primary site fails before replication completes. Which contingency metric should you present?

Accepted Answer

Recovery Point Objective (RPO). The metric that bounds acceptable data loss measured in time is the Recovery Point Objective. It tells the CIO how frequently data must be replicated or backed up so that a primary-site failure does not lose more transactions than the business can tolerate. MTD, RTO, and SDO address outage duration, restoration speed, and interim service level respectively, none of which quantifies lost transaction data.

Answer

Recovery Time Objective (RTO)

Answer

Service Delivery Objective (SDO)

Answer

Maximum Tolerable Downtime (MTD)

Question 15

A hospital's emergency department depends on a clinical documentation system. The BIA shows the department can function on paper forms for up to four hours, after which patient safety risk becomes unacceptable. The DR plan states the system will be restored within six hours. What should the contingency manager do FIRST?

Accepted Answer

Escalate the gap between the six-hour restoration target and the four-hour business tolerance to management for a risk decision.. A BIA-derived tolerance of four hours conflicts with a documented six-hour restoration capability, so the contingency manager must escalate the gap for a formal risk decision. Accepting the plan, altering the clinical tolerance, or falsifying the documented target all avoid accountability and could place patients at risk. Escalation ensures management chooses to accept, mitigate, or transfer the residual risk.

Answer

Extend the paper-form workaround to six hours so the documented tolerance matches the DR plan.

Answer

Accept the plan because the system can be restored within a single business day.

Answer

Update the DR plan to state a four-hour restoration time without changing the technical recovery capability.