CCSP Cloud Security Operations Practice Question
A company runs a regulated workload in Microsoft Azure and must retain all administrative activity logs for seven years to satisfy an auditor. The logs must be immutable and retrievable even if the original resource is deleted. Which Azure capability should the team implement?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is treating long Log Analytics retention or Event Hubs streaming as equivalent to immutability, when only a locked immutability policy on blob storage actually prevents deletion or alteration of the retained logs.
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
✓
Azure Storage immutable blob storage with a time-based retention policy
The requirement combines long retention, immutability, and availability after resource deletion. Azure Storage immutable blob storage with a locked time-based retention policy holds blobs unalterable for the configured interval, and diagnostic settings can route activity logs there. That pairing meets the seven-year immutability mandate in a way plain log retention or streaming pipelines cannot.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Azure Storage immutable blob storage with a time-based retention policy
Why this is correct
Immutable blob storage with a time-based retention policy written in legal-hold or locked policy mode prevents modification or deletion of blobs for the specified interval, and the policy can be set to seven years. Diagnostic settings can export activity logs to the storage account, meeting the immutability and retrievability requirements.
- ✗
Azure Event Hubs streaming activity logs to a third-party SIEM
Why it's wrong here
Event Hubs is a transient ingestion pipeline with configurable retention measured in hours or days, not years, and it offers no immutability guarantee. Once the retention window passes, events are discarded, so this approach cannot preserve seven years of administrative logs for an auditor.
- ✗
A Log Analytics workspace with a 30-day interactive retention and archive tier
Why it's wrong here
Log Analytics workspaces support interactive retention plus a long-term archive tier, which can reach multi-year periods, but archive data is not immutably locked against modification or deletion by a privileged administrator without an additional immutability control. The scenario explicitly requires immutable retention, so this alone is insufficient.
- ✗
Azure Monitor activity log with the default 90-day retention setting
Why it's wrong here
The Azure Monitor activity log retains events for 90 days by default, and the maximum diagnostic retention is 90 days as well. It cannot satisfy a seven-year immutability requirement, and deleting the resource does not extend retention, so this option fails the auditor's criteria outright.
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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.