CISM Incident Management Practice Question
An organization's incident response team has identified that a data breach involves customer personal information. Which of the following should be done FIRST to preserve evidence for potential litigation?
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
✓
Issue a legal hold to preserve relevant data
Legal hold prevents spoliation of evidence; it must be issued before any remediation that could alter data.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Issue a legal hold to preserve relevant data
Why this is correct
A legal hold ensures that all relevant data is preserved for potential legal proceedings.
- ✗
Notify affected customers
Why it's wrong here
Customer notification may be required but should not precede evidence preservation.
- ✗
Begin system restoration from backups
Why it's wrong here
Restoration may alter evidence; legal hold should come first.
- ✗
Conduct a root cause analysis
Why it's wrong here
Root cause analysis is important but not the first step for evidence preservation.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This CISM 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 CISM exam.