Certified: The CISSP Prepcast

Welcome to The Bare Metal Cyber CISSP Prepcast. This series helps you prepare for the ISC squared CISSP exam with focused explanations and practical context.
In this episode, we’re diving into Backup Controls and Data Recovery—two fundamental pillars of cybersecurity resilience. These practices ensure that your organization can recover quickly from disruptions, restore lost or damaged data, and maintain operational continuity even during severe incidents such as ransomware attacks, hardware failures, natural disasters, or user error.
A well-designed backup and recovery program not only protects against data loss—it also builds trust, fulfills compliance obligations, and supports business continuity. As a future Certified Information Systems Security Professional, you’ll need to understand how to create, manage, secure, and test backup systems while ensuring that recovery strategies align with organizational objectives and threat landscapes.
Let’s begin with backup controls. Backup controls refer to the structured processes and technical safeguards used to create copies of organizational data and store them securely. The goal is to protect against data loss, whether it results from accidental deletion, corruption, cyberattacks, or system failure.
Backups act as your safety net. When implemented properly, they allow your organization to restore data quickly, reduce downtime, and resume normal operations. Backup controls include selecting the right backup types, determining appropriate schedules, securing storage locations, and ensuring the integrity of backup copies.
There are several types of backups to consider. A full backup copies all selected data, creating a complete duplicate of the dataset. This method is comprehensive but time-consuming and storage-intensive. Incremental backups store only data that has changed since the last backup of any type—making them faster and more space-efficient. Differential backups, by contrast, store data that has changed since the last full backup. These strike a balance between full and incremental backups in terms of time and storage requirements.
Selecting the right combination depends on your organization’s needs. Some businesses may perform full backups weekly, with incremental backups every day. Others may choose differential backups midweek to speed up recovery. The frequency and method must reflect data volume, change rate, operational priorities, and system criticality.
Policies must define what data gets backed up, how often backups occur, where backups are stored, and how long backups are retained. These policies should account for business requirements, compliance mandates, and data classification standards. Sensitive data may require encrypted storage and more frequent backups.
Let’s now focus on data recovery planning. Backups alone are not enough. You must also know how to restore data when something goes wrong. That’s where data recovery planning comes in.
Recovery planning involves defining clear procedures to restore data and systems after a disruption. These procedures must be documented, tested, and known by everyone involved in recovery operations. Recovery plans specify the order of operations, the roles and responsibilities of team members, the systems to be restored first, and the tools and resources needed for recovery.
Two essential elements of recovery planning are the Recovery Time Objective, or R T O, and the Recovery Point Objective, or R P O. The R T O defines how quickly a system or function must be restored after a failure. For example, a financial system may have an R T O of one hour. The R P O defines how much data loss is acceptable—usually measured in time. For instance, an R P O of fifteen minutes means the organization can tolerate no more than fifteen minutes of data loss.
Together, R T O and R P O help guide backup frequency, technology selection, and resource allocation. They also help prioritize which systems are restored first and how fast recovery must happen to avoid unacceptable impact.
Recovery planning must also consider scenarios like ransomware, where data may be encrypted or held hostage. In such cases, organizations must be prepared to isolate systems, clean environments, and restore clean backups without reintroducing the threat.
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Now let’s talk about implementing effective backup and recovery strategies. Documentation is the first step. Policies and procedures should outline who is responsible for backups, how backups are executed, what data is included, where backups are stored, and how to restore systems during an event.
Backup storage must be secure and redundant. On-site storage allows for fast restores, but it may be vulnerable to local disasters or physical theft. Off-site storage, including cloud-based backups, offers geographic redundancy and resilience. Ideally, organizations use a hybrid approach with both on-premises and remote copies.
Cloud backups add scalability and accessibility but must be managed securely. This includes encrypting data before it leaves your network, using secure transmission protocols, and verifying the cloud provider’s security controls.
Regular testing is essential. Backups should not only be created—they must be verified. Restoration tests confirm that data can be retrieved, that integrity is preserved, and that recovery procedures work under pressure. Testing should cover different data types, storage locations, and scenarios, including full and partial restores.
Employee training supports consistency. Staff should know how to initiate backups, verify completion, respond to errors, and support recovery efforts. This training must be refreshed regularly and integrated into onboarding for technical personnel.
Incident response plans must incorporate backup and recovery. If a breach or ransomware attack occurs, the organization must know when to switch to backups, how to isolate affected systems, and how to communicate with stakeholders during recovery.
Let’s now examine the security controls associated with backup and recovery. First, encryption must be applied at every stage—during storage, during transmission, and during restoration. Backups contain valuable data and are frequent targets for attackers. Encrypting backup data ensures that even if storage media is lost or compromised, the data remains unreadable.
Access controls are another critical element. Only authorized personnel should be able to access backup systems or modify recovery configurations. Role-based access control, multi-factor authentication, and activity logging help protect backup repositories.
Data integrity checks help ensure backups are usable. Hashing, checksums, and validation processes verify that data hasn’t been altered or corrupted. These checks should be performed when backups are created and when they are restored.
Monitoring and logging are essential. All backup and recovery activities should be logged and reviewed. Logs help detect unauthorized activity, troubleshoot failures, and support audits. Backup failures should trigger alerts so that issues can be addressed promptly.
Finally, secure disposal must not be forgotten. When backup media is no longer needed, it must be destroyed or sanitized using approved methods. Old tapes, hard drives, or cloud snapshots that contain sensitive data must be securely erased to prevent data leakage.
Now let’s turn to continuous improvement. Backup and recovery are not static—they must evolve. As new threats emerge, technologies advance, and business needs shift, your strategy must adapt.
Start by reviewing and updating backup policies regularly. Ensure that retention periods reflect compliance mandates. Verify that backup frequencies match R P O requirements. Reassess whether your tools and storage locations still meet organizational goals.
Incident and recovery analysis is another driver. After each recovery event, perform a lessons-learned review. What worked well? What slowed the response? What data was harder to recover than expected? Use this feedback to refine procedures, improve training, and update documentation.
Audits and assessments help maintain accountability. They identify gaps in policy implementation, flag systems that are not being backed up, and confirm that recovery procedures are known and followed.
Cross-functional collaboration ensures alignment. IT teams manage infrastructure. Security teams oversee controls. Compliance teams define requirements. Business units understand priorities. Bringing these perspectives together ensures that backup and recovery plans support the whole organization.
Training must be ongoing. Staff should be reminded of policies, shown how to access backup systems, and included in recovery drills. This reduces human error and increases response speed.
Proactive improvement strategies help ensure resilience. For example, integrating immutable backups to protect against ransomware. Deploying automated backup verification tools. Or adopting orchestration platforms that speed up recovery across hybrid environments.
Ultimately, backup and recovery is about more than technology—it’s about trust. It’s the ability to keep promises, serve customers, and maintain continuity even in the face of adversity. A strong backup and recovery strategy protects your data, your operations, and your reputation.
Thank you for joining the CISSP Prepcast by Bare Metal Cyber. Visit baremetalcyber.com for additional episodes, comprehensive CISSP study materials, and personalized certification support. Deepen your understanding of Backup Controls and Data Recovery, and we'll consistently support your journey toward CISSP certification success.