easyMultiple Choice
CV0-004 Practice Question: A company hosts its critical applications on a…
A company hosts its critical applications on a cloud provider's virtual machines within a virtual private cloud. The security team receives an alert from the intrusion detection system indicating that one of the VMs is exhibiting signs of a ransomware infection. The administrator connects to the VM via a bastion host and observes that several important files have been encrypted and a ransom note has been left. The incident response plan is still being developed, but the administrator knows the immediate priority is to contain the threat and prevent it from spreading to other VMs and storage resources. The company has daily backups stored in a separate cloud storage service that is not directly accessible from the production network. Which of the following actions should the administrator take FIRST to contain the incident and minimize further damage?
⚠ Common exam trap
CV0-004 often tests incident response ordering — candidates pick 'restore from backup' or 'scan' because they sound productive, but the exam expects containment FIRST, before eradication or recovery.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Immediately disconnect the network interface of the infected VM.
The FIRST action in ransomware containment is to isolate the infected VM from the network by disconnecting its network interface. This immediately stops the malware from spreading laterally to other VMs, shared storage, or command-and-control servers. Restoring from backup, notifying law enforcement, or scanning come after containment, because the infection could continue to spread while those actions are performed.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Restore the VM from the most recent backup.
Why it's wrong here
Restoring rebuilds data but leaves the compromised VM live and spreading, and the encrypted instance may simply be re-infected. Backup restoration is the recovery step taken after containment, appropriate once the threat is isolated and the clean source verified.
- ✗
Notify law enforcement about the ransomware attack.
Why it's wrong here
Notification is an administrative and legal step that removes no attacker access; encryption and lateral movement continue meanwhile. Involving law enforcement belongs later in the response, once the threat is contained and evidence preserved, not as the first containment action.
- ✗
Run a full antivirus scan on the infected VM.
Why it's wrong here
Scanning leaves the VM running and connected, so ransomware can keep encrypting files and reach mounted storage or peer VMs. Antivirus scanning suits routine malware triage on a suspected but unconfirmed host; here the ransom note confirms active encryption, demanding network isolation first.
- ✓
Immediately disconnect the network interface of the infected VM.
Why this is correct
Disconnecting the network interface severs all inbound and outbound traffic at the virtual NIC level, immediately halting lateral movement to other VMs and mounted storage. This satisfies the stem's containment priority, isolating the ransomware before it can encrypt shared resources, while preserving the VM's disk state for later forensic analysis.
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JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official CompTIA exam blueprint
This CV0-004 practice question is part of Courseiva's free CompTIA certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the CV0-004 exam.