ISC2 CC Business Continuity, DR & Incident Response Practice Question
An organization's recovery time objective (RTO) for its customer database is 4 hours. During a disaster, the backup restore process takes 2 hours, but reconfigure and test tasks add another 3 hours. Which action best addresses this gap?
⚠ Common exam trap
ISC2 often tests the distinction between RTO and RPO, and the trap here is that candidates confuse reducing RPO (data loss) with fixing a time-based gap, or they incorrectly assume that simply increasing the RTO is an acceptable solution without considering process improvement.
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
✓
Automate the configuration and validation steps after restore.
The RTO is 4 hours, but the actual recovery time is 2 hours (restore) + 3 hours (reconfigure and test) = 5 hours, exceeding the RTO by 1 hour. Automating the configuration and validation steps (option D) reduces the post-restore manual effort, bringing the total recovery time closer to or within the 4-hour RTO. This directly addresses the gap without altering the RTO or neglecting testing.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Conduct the restore test only during annual disaster recovery drills.
Why it's wrong here
Annual drills only validate the existing 5-hour procedure; they neither shorten restore, reconfigure and test tasks nor meet the 4-hour RTO during a real disaster. Drilling is correct for confirming a recovery plan already capable of meeting its objectives.
- ✗
Reduce the recovery point objective (RPO) to minimize data loss.
Why it's wrong here
RPO governs tolerable data loss measured in time, not how long recovery takes; lowering it cannot shorten the 5-hour restore, reconfigure and test sequence exceeding the 4-hour RTO. Reducing RPO is correct when the concern is losing recent transactions after an outage.
- ✗
Increase the RTO to 6 hours.
Why it's wrong here
Raising the RTO to 6 hours abandons the 4-hour business requirement rather than closing the 5-hour recovery gap; the objective is a target, not a variable to relax. Increasing RTO would be defensible only if the business genuinely accepted longer outages.
- ✓
Automate the configuration and validation steps after restore.
Why this is correct
Restore takes two hours, but manual reconfiguration and validation add three, totalling five hours and breaching the four-hour RTO. Automating those post-restore configuration and validation steps removes manual delay, bringing total recovery within the four-hour objective.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
Key term
Organization
An Organization is a top-level container in Google Cloud that represents your company or entities and serves as the root node for all your cloud resources, policies, and access control.
Key term
Recovery
Recovery is the process of restoring systems, data, and operations after a security incident, failure, or disaster to return to normal functioning.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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