CISA Practice Question: Information Systems Operations and Business Resilience
During a disaster recovery test, the IS auditor observes that the alternate site uses a warm site configuration. Which of the following is a characteristic of a warm site?
⚠ Common exam trap
CISA often tests the distinction between cold, warm, and hot sites by swapping their defining characteristics — candidates frequently confuse 'has equipment but needs data' (warm) with 'has infrastructure but no equipment' (cold) or 'fully operational duplicate' (hot).
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
✓
It has equipment but requires data restoration
A warm site is a partially equipped recovery facility that contains the hardware, network infrastructure, and peripherals needed to run operations, but it does not have current production data pre-loaded. After a disaster is declared, the organization must restore data from backups and apply recent transaction logs before the site can process live workloads. This makes warm sites a middle-ground option between a cold site (empty facility) and a hot site (fully mirrored, near-instant failover).
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
It is a mobile recovery unit
Why it's wrong here
A mobile recovery unit is a transportable trailer providing alternate processing capacity, an option independent of the hot/warm/cold classification. A warm site is a fixed facility with installed hardware and connectivity, requiring data restoration before processing resumes.
- ✗
It has infrastructure but no processing equipment
Why it's wrong here
A warm site includes processing equipment such as servers, so stating it has none describes a cold site instead. It is tempting because warm sites do lack fully mirrored live data and redundant capacity, and a cold site — offering only space, power and network — would be the right answer if the question asked about minimal facilities.
- ✓
It has equipment but requires data restoration
Why this is correct
A warm site is partially equipped: hardware, peripherals and network connectivity are installed, but current production data is absent and must be restored from backups before operations resume. This distinguishes it from a hot site, which holds mirrored live data, and a cold site, which lacks installed equipment.
- ✗
It is a fully operational duplicate of the primary site
Why it's wrong here
A fully operational duplicate describes a hot site, where systems run live and failover is near-instant. A warm site provides pre-installed hardware and connectivity but requires restoring data and loading software, so it cannot resume processing without that recovery step.
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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 ISACA exam blueprint
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.