hardMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped
CISSP Practice Question: A company's security team discovers that an…
A company's security team discovers that an employee inadvertently shared sensitive customer data via a public cloud storage link. The incident response team contains the breach and notifies affected customers. Which of the following risk management strategies would BEST prevent recurrence?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently choose awareness training (Option B) because it seems like a logical first step, but the question asks for the BEST strategy to PREVENT recurrence, and DLP provides a technical control that actively blocks the action rather than relying on human behavior change.
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
✓
Deploy a Data Loss Prevention (DLP) solution that monitors and controls sharing of sensitive data.
A Data Loss Prevention (DLP) solution provides automated, policy-based monitoring and control of sensitive data being shared via public cloud storage links. Unlike awareness training (which relies on human behavior) or blanket blocking (which hinders productivity), DLP can inspect content in real time using pattern matching, fingerprinting, or exact data matching to prevent unauthorized sharing before it occurs, directly addressing the root cause of inadvertent exposure.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Block all access to public cloud storage services from corporate devices.
Why it's wrong here
Blocking all access to public cloud storage services from corporate devices is an overly restrictive measure that severely impedes legitimate business operations and employee productivity. Many organizations rely on public cloud services for collaboration, data sharing with external partners, and remote work, making a complete block impractical and potentially driving users to unmonitored shadow IT solutions. This approach lacks the necessary granularity to differentiate between legitimate and unauthorized data transfers, creating significant operational friction.
- ✗
Implement mandatory security awareness training focusing on data handling procedures.
Why it's wrong here
Implementing mandatory security awareness training is a crucial foundational control for educating employees on data handling policies and the risks associated with sensitive information. However, training alone is insufficient to prevent all accidental data breaches, as human error remains an inevitable factor, even among well-trained individuals. It lacks the automated, real-time enforcement capabilities required to consistently monitor and block unauthorized or accidental sharing of sensitive data, making it a valuable but not a primary preventative technical solution for this specific problem.
- ✓
Deploy a Data Loss Prevention (DLP) solution that monitors and controls sharing of sensitive data.
Why this is correct
Deploying a Data Loss Prevention (DLP) solution directly addresses the problem by providing automated, policy-driven controls to monitor, identify, and prevent the unauthorized or accidental sharing of sensitive data. DLP systems can inspect data in motion (network traffic), data at rest (storage), and data in use (endpoints), blocking transfers that violate predefined security policies. This proactive technical control ensures that sensitive information, regardless of its format or destination, is not inadvertently or maliciously exfiltrated from the corporate environment.
- ✗
Encrypt all sensitive data at rest and in transit to render shared data useless.
Why it's wrong here
Encrypting all sensitive data at rest and in transit is a critical security measure for protecting data confidentiality, rendering it unreadable to unauthorized parties. However, encryption does not inherently prevent an authorized user from *sharing* the encrypted data, which is the core issue of an employee inadvertently sharing information. If an employee with legitimate access shares an encrypted file, and the recipient also gains access to the decryption key or the means to decrypt it, the data is still compromised through sharing, even if it was encrypted.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Security Governance and Principles
Key term
Risk
Risk is the possibility that an event or action will negatively affect an organization's ability to achieve its goals, often measured in terms of likelihood and impact.
Key term
Policy
A policy is a set of rules or guidelines that defines how an organization manages, secures, and operates its IT systems and services.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This CISSP 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 CISSP exam.