This CCSP practice question tests your understanding of legal, risk and compliance. Read the scenario carefully and evaluate each option against the stated constraints before committing to an answer. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
During litigation, a company receives a legal hold notice for electronically stored information (ESI) in a cloud environment. The cloud provider's standard service agreement includes a clause that automatically deletes data 30 days after termination of service. What should the company do to ensure compliance?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Notify the provider to preserve the data
Option D is correct because a legal hold notice imposes a duty to preserve relevant ESI. The company must notify the cloud provider to suspend any automatic deletion policies, such as the 30-day post-termination deletion clause, to ensure data is preserved in accordance with eDiscovery obligations under FRCP Rule 37(e) or similar regulations.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
✗
Ignore the legal hold notice
Why it's wrong here
Ignoring the legal hold could result in spoliation liability.
✗
Download all data immediately
Why it's wrong here
Downloading may not meet preservation requirements for ongoing litigation.
✗
Terminate the account to stop further processing
Why it's wrong here
Termination would trigger the 30-day deletion clause.
✓
Notify the provider to preserve the data
Why this is correct
Correct. The provider must be instructed to retain data subject to legal hold.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
ISC2 often tests the misconception that downloading data is sufficient for preservation, but the trap here is that the original ESI in the cloud must be preserved in place to maintain its native format, metadata, and chain of custody for eDiscovery.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), a legal hold suspends routine data retention and deletion policies. In cloud environments, the customer must issue a preservation request to the provider, often via a formal legal hold notice or by enabling provider-specific preservation features (e.g., AWS Glacier Vault Lock or Azure Immutable Blob Storage). The provider's automatic deletion clause is a contractual term, but a legal hold overrides it as a matter of law; failure to notify the provider results in the provider's automated processes deleting the data, which is not excused by the contract.
KKey Concepts to Remember
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
→Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
→Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A security analyst at a medium-sized enterprise encounters this scenario during an investigation or architecture review. The correct answer reflects best practice for the specific threat or control described. Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option. Security exam questions test whether you can match controls to threats in context — not just recall definitions.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Legal, Risk and Compliance — This question tests Legal, Risk and Compliance — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Notify the provider to preserve the data — Option D is correct because a legal hold notice imposes a duty to preserve relevant ESI. The company must notify the cloud provider to suspend any automatic deletion policies, such as the 30-day post-termination deletion clause, to ensure data is preserved in accordance with eDiscovery obligations under FRCP Rule 37(e) or similar regulations.
What should I do if I get this CCSP question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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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.
Question Discussion
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