ISC2 CC Business Continuity, DR & Incident Response Practice Question
Which metric defines the maximum acceptable amount of data loss measured in time?
⚠ Common exam trap
ISC2 often tests the distinction between RPO and RTO, where candidates confuse 'data loss' (RPO) with 'downtime' (RTO); the trap is that both are time-based metrics, but RPO is about how far back in time you can recover data, while RTO is about how long it takes to restore service.
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
✓
Recovery Point Objective (RPO)
The Recovery Point Objective (RPO) defines the maximum acceptable amount of data loss measured in time, typically expressed in seconds, minutes, or hours. It represents the age of the most recent backup or replicated data that must be available to resume operations after a disaster, directly determining the frequency of backups or replication intervals.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Recovery Point Objective (RPO)
Why this is correct
RPO defines the maximum data loss in terms of time.
- ✗
Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF)
Why it's wrong here
MTBF is a reliability metric, not related to data loss.
- ✗
Mean Time to Repair (MTTR)
Why it's wrong here
MTTR is the average time to repair, not data loss.
- ✗
Recovery Time Objective (RTO)
Why it's wrong here
RTO is the time to restore operations, not data loss.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Security Operations Basics
Key term
Business Continuity Planning
Business Continuity Planning is the process of creating a strategy to keep an organization's essential functions running during and after a major disruption.
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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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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.