ISC2 CC Practice Question: Business Continuity, Disaster Recovery, and Incident Response
An organization uses a 3-2-1 backup strategy. They have a primary full backup on a local NAS, a second copy on tape stored offsite, and a third copy in the cloud. During a ransomware attack, the local NAS and the tape library are both encrypted. Which copy should be used for recovery?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap is assuming that the offsite tape copy is automatically safe — the question explicitly states it was encrypted, testing whether you read the scenario carefully rather than applying the 3-2-1 rule blindly.
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
✓
The cloud backup
The cloud backup is the only copy that was not compromised by the ransomware attack, since both the local NAS and the offsite tape library were encrypted. In a 3-2-1 strategy, the offsite copy is specifically intended to survive local disasters, but here the attacker reached both on-premises copies. The cloud copy, being isolated and typically immutable or versioned, is the correct recovery source.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The tape backup
Why it's wrong here
The tape library is encrypted, so this copy is unusable for restoration despite being offsite. It tempts because tape offsite is the classic 3-2-1 answer for site-loss scenarios, and it would be correct if the encryption had affected only the NAS and production environment.
- ✗
The local NAS backup
Why it's wrong here
The NAS copy is encrypted by the ransomware, so restoring from it would reinstate compromised or unavailable data. It tempts as the fastest local restore source, and a local NAS backup is the correct choice when the incident is isolated to production systems and the NAS itself remains unaffected.
- ✓
The cloud backup
Why this is correct
The 3-2-1 strategy keeps one copy offsite and offline from the primary environment. Since both the local NAS and the offsite tape library were encrypted, only the cloud copy remains intact and uninfected, so recovery must draw from that isolated third copy.
- ✗
A new full backup from production data
Why it's wrong here
Production data is itself compromised, so generating a fresh full backup would capture encrypted or corrupted files rather than clean data. It tempts because rebuilding from current systems seems quick, and a new backup is valid when production is verified clean and no earlier copy exists.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
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.
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.
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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 ISC2 exam blueprint
This CC practice question is part of Courseiva's free ISC2 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 CC exam.