CISSP Practice Question: Is a key requirement for an effective backup…

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.

• ✗

  Incremental backups are performed monthly.

  Why it's wrong here

  Monthly incremental backups are highly ineffective for most operational environments, as they result in an unacceptably high Recovery Point Objective (RPO). This infrequent schedule means that in the event of a system failure or data corruption, up to a full month's worth of data changes could be permanently lost, leading to severe business disruption. Modern best practices typically require daily or even more frequent backups to minimize potential data loss.

• ✗

  Backups use the same credentials as the production environment.

  Why it's wrong here

  Using identical credentials for both production systems and backup repositories creates a critical single point of failure and a severe security vulnerability. If an attacker compromises the production environment's credentials, they gain immediate access to the backups, enabling them to delete, encrypt, or exfiltrate critical recovery data. This practice undermines the entire disaster recovery strategy and violates the principle of least privilege and separation of duties.

• ✗

  Backups are stored on the same network as production.

  Why it's wrong here

  Storing backups on the same network as the production environment significantly increases the risk of simultaneous compromise. A network-wide attack, such as ransomware or a sophisticated worm, could easily propagate to and encrypt or delete both live data and its corresponding backups, rendering recovery impossible. Effective backup strategies demand logical and physical separation to ensure resilience against such widespread threats.

• ✓

  Backups are encrypted and stored offline or air-gapped.

  Why this is correct

  Encrypting backups protects data confidentiality both in transit and at rest, preventing unauthorized access even if the storage media is compromised. Storing these encrypted backups offline or in an air-gapped manner physically isolates them from the production network, making them impervious to network-borne threats like ransomware, malware, or insider attacks that target online data. This strategy ensures data immutability and provides a secure, last-resort recovery point.

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