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 immediately suspends routine deletion and preserves all relevant data, satisfying the stem's requirement to preserve evidence first. Issuing it before forensic imaging or notification prevents spoliation, ensuring evidence remains admissible for potential litigation.
- ✗
Notify affected customers
Why it's wrong here
Notifying affected customers before forensic preservation risks tipping off the attacker and does not secure logs, memory or disk images required for litigation. It is tempting because breach notification is a legal obligation, but it follows containment and evidence preservation, not precedes them.
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Begin system restoration from backups
Why it's wrong here
Restoring from backups overwrites the compromised systems, permanently destroying volatile memory, logs and file artefacts that litigation would rely on. It is tempting because restoration is the visible recovery step, and would be correct after forensic imaging and containment are complete.
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Conduct a root cause analysis
Why it's wrong here
Root cause analysis examines systems and may alter or overwrite volatile data before forensic images are captured, destroying evidence needed for litigation. It is tempting because understanding the cause is a core incident response goal, and would be correct once evidence has been preserved and containment completed.
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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.