Which combination of backup practices offers strongest protection against ransomware and ensures recoverability?

• A. Air-gapped backups, immutable backups, and the 3-2-1 rule
• B. Local USB backups only
• C. Cloud backups without offline copies
• D. No backups, relying on anti-malware

Answer: (A)

Protecting against ransomware and ensuring you can recover quickly comes from layered, tamper-resistant backups that aren’t reachable by attackers. Air-gapped backups sit offline, so ransomware can’t reach them to encrypt or delete the data. Immutable backups can’t be altered or erased for a defined period, even by someone who gains access to the backup system. The 3-2-1 rule—three copies of data on two different media with one offsite—adds redundancy and geographic separation, so a single failure or a single incident doesn’t wipe out your restore options.

Put together, these practices provide strong protection: offline copies can’t be compromised by network infections, immutability prevents tampering, and the 3-2-1 approach ensures you have multiple, diverse restores available. The other options fall short because they either lack offline protection, allow tampering or deletion, or offer no backup at all if something goes wrong.