ISC2 CC Practice Question: Business Continuity, Disaster Recovery, and Incident Response
During an incident, a security analyst identifies a SQL injection attack. The team contains the threat by blocking the attacker's IP. Which step should be performed next in the incident response process?
⚠ Common exam trap
CC often tests the order of incident response phases, and candidates commonly confuse eradication (removing the root cause) with recovery (restoring operations) after containment.
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
✓
Eradication
The incident response lifecycle is Preparation, Detection, Containment, Eradication, Recovery, and Lessons Learned. After containing the threat by blocking the attacker's IP, the next step is eradication, which involves removing the root cause — such as patching the SQL injection vulnerability, removing malware, or closing the attack vector. Recovery (restoring systems) follows eradication.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Detection
Why it's wrong here
Detection precedes containment; the analyst has already identified the SQL injection, so returning to detection adds nothing. It is tempting because detection is genuinely the first phase of the incident response lifecycle, and would be correct had the question asked which step initiates the process rather than which follows containment.
- ✗
Lessons Learned
Why it's wrong here
Lessons Learned closes the incident after eradication and recovery are complete; jumping there skips both. It is tempting because it is a genuine, distinct phase of the incident response lifecycle, and would be correct once the threat is fully removed, systems restored and the post-incident review convened.
- ✗
Recovery
Why it's wrong here
Recovery restores affected systems to normal operation, but eradication must first remove the vulnerability the SQL injection exploited. It is tempting because recovery is a real phase immediately following containment in some models, and would be correct once the injection point is patched and the attacker's access fully removed.
- ✓
Eradication
Why this is correct
Eradication follows containment in the incident response lifecycle. After blocking the attacker's IP, the team must remove the SQL injection vulnerability, patch the application and eliminate any malware or persistence, so the threat cannot recur before recovery begins.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Incident Response and Management
Key term
SQL injection
SQL injection is a web security vulnerability that allows an attacker to interfere with the queries an application makes to its database, often to read, modify, or destroy data.
Key term
Incident response
Incident response is the structured approach an organization uses to identify, contain, and recover from cybersecurity incidents like data breaches or ransomware attacks.
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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.