Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) Practice Exam 2025 – All-in-One Guide to Mastering Your Certification!

The purpose of a differential backup is to archive changed files since the last full backup. This type of backup captures only the data that has changed or been added after the most recent full backup, making it an efficient method for synchronizing the current state of the files with the backup system.

Differential backups are crucial for disaster recovery processes as they allow for quicker restoration compared to full backups, while still being less storage-intensive than maintaining multiple full backups. When combined with the latest full backup, performing a differential backup means that in order to restore the system, only the latest full backup and the most recent differential backup are needed, streamlining the recovery process.

In contrast, other options such as creating a complete system restore point or copying files directly to cloud storage do not accurately reflect the incremental nature of differential backups. Similarly, hourly incremental backups focus on changes made since the last backup, but they do so independently rather than accumulating changes since the last full backup, which distinguishes them from differential backups.