easyMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped
CISA Practice Question: A medium-sized financial services firm recently…
A medium-sized financial services firm recently suffered a ransomware attack that encrypted critical servers and backups. The recovery process took three weeks because the backup tapes were stored in the same building (which was also infected) and the backup software had a vulnerability that allowed the ransomware to delete old backups. The firm's BCP did not account for simultaneous loss of primary and secondary data. As the IS auditor, you are asked to recommend the most effective improvement to the backup strategy to prevent recurrence and improve resilience. Which of the following actions should the firm implement?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often choose increased backup frequency or cloud migration, thinking they improve resilience, but they overlook the critical requirement that backups must be protected from deletion or encryption by the same attack that compromises the primary systems.
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
✓
Implement immutable backups and store them offsite or in a separate air-gapped environment
Immutable backups prevent modification or deletion by ransomware, even if the backup software or administrative credentials are compromised. Storing them offsite or in an air-gapped environment ensures that a simultaneous physical or logical attack cannot destroy both primary and secondary data, directly addressing the root cause of the three-week recovery delay.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Implement immutable backups and store them offsite or in a separate air-gapped environment
Why this is correct
Immutable backups prevent unauthorized deletion or modification, directly mitigating the risk from ransomware.
- ✗
Increase the frequency of full backups to daily
Why it's wrong here
More frequent backups may reduce data loss but do not protect existing backups from deletion or encryption.
- ✗
Conduct quarterly tabletop exercises to test recovery procedures
Why it's wrong here
Tabletop exercises improve preparedness but do not fix the underlying backup vulnerability.
- ✗
Move all backups to a cloud storage provider with default settings
Why it's wrong here
Cloud storage alone does not ensure immutability; without specific configuration, backups can still be deleted.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This CISA practice question is part of Courseiva's free ISACA 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 CISA exam.