CCSP Legal, Risk, and Compliance Practice Question
A company is subject to a legal hold order and uses a cloud storage service with object replication across multiple regions. Which cloud feature should the company use to prevent deletion or modification of relevant data?
⚠ Common exam trap
CCSP often tests immutability versus durability — candidates pick 'versioning' or 'cross-region replication' because they sound protective, but only Object Lock/legal hold provides true WORM protection against deletion or modification.
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
✓
Legal hold policies (e.g., S3 Object Lock)
Legal hold policies, such as Amazon S3 Object Lock in compliance mode, prevent objects from being deleted or overwritten for a specified retention period, even by privileged users. This directly satisfies a legal hold order requiring preservation of data against alteration or destruction. Object Lock uses a write-once-read-many (WORM) model that is purpose-built for litigation holds and regulatory retention.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Versioning of objects
Why it's wrong here
Versioning retains prior object versions but permits deletion of the current object and does not lock data against modification, so it cannot satisfy a legal hold. It is tempting because it preserves recoverable copies, and it would suit rollback after accidental overwrite, yet the requirement is immutability, which object lock provides.
- ✗
Cross-region replication
Why it's wrong here
Cross-region replication copies objects to other regions but propagates deletions and overwrites to replicas, so it does not prevent modification. It is tempting because it improves durability and availability, and would be correct for resilience against regional outage, but a legal hold demands retention controls that block deletion, which replication lacks.
- ✗
Backup to another provider
Why it's wrong here
Backing up to another provider creates independent copies but does not prevent deletion or alteration of the source objects, and restoration is not a retention guarantee. It is tempting as a defence against provider loss, and would suit disaster recovery, yet the legal hold requires an in-place immutability control on the stored data.
- ✓
Legal hold policies (e.g., S3 Object Lock)
Why this is correct
S3 Object Lock enforces write-once-read-many (WORM) protection at the object level, blocking deletion or modification for a defined retention period even by root users. This directly satisfies the legal hold constraint, unlike replication, which merely copies data and propagates deletions across regions.
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
| Storage Class | Min Duration | Retrieval | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 Standard | None | Immediate | Frequently accessed data |
| S3 Standard-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Infrequent access, rapid retrieval |
| S3 One Zone-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Non-critical infrequent data |
| S3 Intelligent-Tiering | None | Immediate–hours | Unknown or changing access patterns |
| S3 Glacier Instant | 90 days | Milliseconds | Archive with instant retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Flexible | 90 days | Minutes–hours | Archive, flexible retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | 180 days | Hours | Long-term compliance archive |
Go deeper
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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 CCSP 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 CCSP exam.