SC-900 Microsoft Security Compliance and Identity Fundamentals Questions and Answers

Microsoft states that Security defaults are baseline protections in Azure Active Directory (now Microsoft Entra ID) that “make it easier to help protect your organization from identity-related attacks.” One of the core behaviors is that security defaults “require all users to register for Azure AD Multi-Factor Authentication,” and enforce “multi-factor authentication for all users,” with special emphasis that “administrators are required to do multi-factor authentication.” Security defaults also “block legacy authentication” and add protections for privileged operations, but the universal control that applies to every user is MFA. Importantly, enabling security defaults does not turn on paid capabilities such as Azure AD Identity Protection or Privileged Identity Management (PIM); those are separate, premium features. The baseline is intentionally simple and tenant-wide: require MFA registration, challenge with MFA when risk or sensitive operations are detected, and reduce exposure by disabling legacy protocols. Therefore, when you enable security defaults, multi-factor authentication (MFA) will be enabled for all Azure AD users, aligning with Microsoft’s guidance that security defaults “help protect all organizations by requiring MFA and disabling legacy authentication.”

In Microsoft Entra ID Protection, risk-based Conditional Access policies use signals such as User risk and Sign-in risk to evaluate potential threats during authentication and identity usage. These are core to adaptive access and identity protection features taught in Microsoft’s SC-300 and SC-900 learning paths.

User risk:

Defined by Microsoft as: “The probability that a specific identity or account is compromised.”

User risk is assessed based on activities and behaviors that indicate the account may have been compromised—such as leaked credentials or atypical user activity over time.

Sign-in risk:

Defined as: “The probability that the authentication request is not performed by the legitimate identity owner.”

Sign-in risk is calculated at the time of authentication based on indicators such as unfamiliar locations, anonymous IP addresses, impossible travel, or malware-linked sign-ins.

These signals help automate access decisions, such as requiring MFA or blocking access, based on real-time risk assessments.

In Microsoft 365 Defender, security signals from across Microsoft 365 services are raised as alerts. Microsoft’s documentation defines an incident as “a collection of correlated alerts” that represent the end-to-end story of an attack. The incident object aggregates the related signals, entities, and evidence so analysts can triage and remediate holistically rather than handling individual alerts in isolation. Microsoft further explains that incidents “group together related alerts, assets, users, and evidence” to reduce noise and provide context for investigation, and that automated correlation “helps SOCs focus on what matters most” by stitching alerts from Defender for Endpoint, Defender for Office 365, Defender for Identity, and Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps into one case. Within an incident, analysts see a timeline, impacted assets and users, alert details, and recommended actions, and they can trigger response measures (for example, isolate device, block URL/file, or disable user). This contrasts with events (raw telemetry), vulnerabilities (exposure findings managed by Defender Vulnerability Management), and Microsoft Secure Score improvement actions (posture recommendations). Therefore, in the Microsoft 365 Defender portal, an incident is specifically a collection of correlated alerts, designed to streamline investigation and coordinated remediation across the Microsoft 365 security stack.

In Microsoft’s Security, Compliance, and Identity guidance, Microsoft Defender for Identity (formerly Azure ATP) is explicitly described as “a cloud-based security solution that leverages your on-premises Active Directory signals to identify, detect, and investigate advanced threats.” The service deploys lightweight sensors on domain controllers to collect and analyze Active Directory (AD) authentication and activity data. Using behavioral analytics and built-in detections, it helps security teams surface indicators of compromised identities, lateral movement, pass-the-ticket/NTLM relay, and other identity-driven attack techniques. Documentation further explains that Defender for Identity “profiles and learns entity behavior,” correlates events, and raises security alerts with investigation timelines and evidence to accelerate incident response in hybrid environments.

This precisely matches the sentence in the prompt: the only Microsoft security product whose core purpose is to use on-premises AD signals to identify, detect, and investigate advanced threats is Defender for Identity. By contrast, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint focuses on endpoint prevention and EDR; Microsoft Defender for Office 365 protects email and collaboration workloads from phishing and malware; and Microsoft Cloud App Security (now Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps) operates as a CASB for app discovery, control, and session monitoring. Therefore, aligning with SCI study guides and product descriptions, the correct completion is Microsoft Defender for Identity.

Microsoft Defender for Identity (formerly Azure ATP) is designed to protect on-premises identity infrastructures by analyzing signals from Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS). In Microsoft’s SCI guidance, Defender for Identity is described as a “cloud service that uses sensors installed on your domain controllers to monitor and analyze user activities and information across your on-premises Active Directory.” The sensors “collect authentication, replication, and other security-relevant events and network traffic,” enabling analytics to detect techniques such as Pass-the-Hash, Pass-the-Ticket, Golden Ticket, reconnaissance, lateral movement, and domain dominance. The product’s purpose is to surface advanced threats, compromised identities, and malicious insider actions by continuously profiling and learning from AD DS behavior and security events.

While Defender for Identity integrates with other Microsoft security solutions (for example, Microsoft 365 Defender and Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps) to enrich investigations, it does not rely on Azure Active Directory (Microsoft Entra ID) signals for its core detections, nor does it collect telemetry from Azure AD Connect itself. Instead, its foundational telemetry source is on-premises AD DS domain controllers via lightweight sensors, which provide the deep authentication and directory-service context required to identify sophisticated identity-based attacks in hybrid environments.

In Microsoft Sentinel, automation of routine or repetitive SOC tasks is delivered through playbooks. Microsoft’s Sentinel guidance defines playbooks as “collections of procedures that can be run from Microsoft Sentinel in response to an alert or incident.” They are “built on Azure Logic Apps” and enable teams to “automate and orchestrate responses to threats” such as enriching incidents, opening tickets, notifying responders, quarantining entities, or blocking indicators. The documentation further clarifies that automation rules can “trigger playbooks automatically based on analytics alerts or incident conditions,” allowing consistent, scalable actions without manual intervention. By contrast, workbooks provide “data visualization and reporting” for analysis; hunting search-and-query tools (built on KQL) are used to “proactively hunt for threats”; and deep investigation tools assist analysts during incident investigation. Therefore, when the goal is to automate common tasks—for example, sending incident notifications, enriching with threat intelligence, or creating tickets in ITSM—the correct capability in Microsoft Sentinel is playbooks, because they encapsulate repeatable response procedures and can be executed automatically via automation rules or manually from incidents, alerts, or entities.

Conditional Access session controls enable user app access and sessions to be monitored and controlled in real time based on access and session policies.

Based on this definition, the best answer for your question is B. enable limited experiences, such as blocking download of sensitive information.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/conditional-access/concept-conditional-access-session

In Microsoft Defender for Cloud, the metric that represents the overall security health of your Azure subscription is secure score. Microsoft’s documentation explains: “Secure score provides an aggregated view of your security posture across your subscriptions and resources. It’s based on security recommendations; addressing those recommendations improves your score.” Defender for Cloud calculates secure score by assessing controls and recommendations mapped to standards, then weighting them by risk and importance: “Each recommendation contributes to the secure score. Completing remediation steps increases the score and reduces risk.” This single percentage view lets security teams quickly gauge how well current configurations and protections align with Microsoft’s security best practices and regulatory mappings. Other elements surfaced in Defender for Cloud—like “resource health,” “status of recommendations,” or “completed controls”—are components and statuses that feed into or relate to the scoring model, but the overall subscription security health indicator presented and tracked over time is secure score.

Box 1: Yes

Azure Defender provides security alerts and advanced threat protection for virtual machines, SQL databases, containers, web applications, your network, your storage, and more

Box 2: Yes

Cloud security posture management (CSPM) is available for free to all Azure users.

Box 3: Yes

Azure Security Center is a unified infrastructure security management system that strengthens the security posture of your data centers, and provides advanced threat protection across your hybrid workloads in the cloud - whether they're in Azure or not - as well as on premises.

Multi-factor authentication is a process where a user is prompted during the sign-in process for an additional form of identification, such as to enter a code on their cellphone or to provide a fingerprint scan.

Microsoft positions Microsoft Sentinel as a cloud-native SIEM and SOAR that “collects data at cloud scale” and “detects, investigates, and responds to threats.” The extended detection and response (XDR) layer in Microsoft’s security stack is delivered by Microsoft 365 Defender, which “correlates signals across endpoints, identities, email, and apps to automatically detect, investigate, and remediate attacks.” Sentinel’s XDR capability is realized through its integration with Microsoft 365 Defender, enabling incident synchronization, alert enrichment, and bi-directional actions. Documentation explains that this integration “brings Microsoft 365 Defender incidents into Microsoft Sentinel,” unifying SIEM/SOAR analytics with the cross-domain XDR detections from Defender. Features such as automatic incident grouping, advanced hunting, and entity behavior flow from Microsoft 365 Defender to Sentinel, giving analysts an end-to-end XDR view. By contrast, threat hunting and workbooks are valuable Sentinel features, and compliance center is unrelated to XDR. The specific capability that provides Sentinel’s XDR experience is its integration with Microsoft 365 Defender.

The Compliance score in Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager is a measurement tool that evaluates an organization’s progress toward meeting data protection and regulatory compliance requirements. It is specifically designed to help organizations reduce risks related to data governance, privacy, and compliance with various standards such as GDPR, ISO 27001, NIST 800-53, and Microsoft Data Protection Baselines.

According to Microsoft’s official documentation on Compliance Manager, the Compliance score “helps organizations track, improve, and demonstrate their compliance posture by providing a quantifiable measure of compliance with regulations and standards.” Each action within Compliance Manager contributes a certain number of points to the overall score. These points are weighted based on risk, meaning that actions with a greater impact on reducing compliance risk contribute more significantly to the total score.

The score is not an absolute measure of legal compliance but rather an indicator of progress toward implementing recommended controls and risk-reducing actions. Microsoft emphasizes that Compliance score “assists organizations in identifying areas of improvement, prioritizing compliance tasks, and maintaining an auditable record of their compliance activities.”

By contrast, Microsoft Secure Score measures security posture related to identity, device, and application protection, while Productivity Score evaluates collaboration and technology experience. Thus, the metric that specifically assesses data protection and regulatory compliance progress is the Compliance score in Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager.

Microsoft’s security and compliance learning content explains that digital signatures are built on public key (asymmetric) cryptography. In this model, each identity has a key pair: a private key that is kept secret and a public key that can be shared. The signing operation is performed with the private key to produce a signature bound to the content and the signer’s identity. Verification is then performed by anyone who has access to the corresponding public key, which mathematically validates the signature and confirms both integrity (the content wasn’t altered) and authenticity (it was signed by the holder of the private key). SCI materials (covering Microsoft Purview Information Protection, Azure Key Vault/PKI concepts, and identity fundamentals) emphasize that the private key must never be disclosed or required for verification; only the public key is used to validate signatures and certificates. This is the same principle used across Microsoft 365 for certificate-based trust, code signing, and document signing: sign with the private key; verify with the public key. Therefore, statements one and two are true, and the statement claiming verification requires the private key is false.

In Microsoft guidance, network segmentation and isolation are core security principles. Azure virtual networks (VNets) are “a fundamental building block… that enable isolation and segmentation of resources,” and multiple VNets are commonly used to separate environments, business units, or security boundaries. This aligns with Zero Trust and SCI guidance that recommends isolating workloads to reduce blast radius and to apply least privilege and policy-based controls per boundary. Microsoft also emphasizes governance alignment, stating that enterprises should structure Azure resources so that policies, RBAC, and compliance requirements can be applied at appropriate scopes (management group, subscription, resource group, or network boundary). Deploying multiple VNets supports these goals by enabling per-environment policy assignment (for example, dev/test vs. production), differentiated security controls (such as NSGs, ASGs, and firewalls), and independent address spaces to prevent overlap across organizations or regions. Options A and D are not primary drivers: budgeting is handled at subscription/resource group scopes rather than VNet count, and a single VNet can already host and connect many resource types; creating multiple VNets is therefore primarily about governance and isolation that reduce risk and enforce organizational policies.

Microsoft’s identity platform (Microsoft Entra ID, formerly Azure AD) supports built-in and custom directory roles. The official guidance states that you can “create your own custom roles to grant permissions for management of Microsoft Entra resources,” and those roles consist of specific role permissions that you select to tailor least-privilege administration. The documentation also lists Global administrator (formerly Company Administrator) as a built-in role that “has access to all administrative features” and can delegate role assignments, reset passwords for all users, and manage identity settings across the tenant. Regarding assignments, Microsoft is explicit that role assignment is many-to-many: administrators can “assign one or more roles to a user,” and the user’s effective permissions are the union of the privileges from all assigned roles. Consequently, (1) creating custom roles is supported (Yes), (2) Global administrator is indeed a defined Azure AD/Microsoft Entra role (Yes), and (3) a user being limited to only one role is incorrect (No) because multiple role assignments to the same user are permitted and commonly used to implement least privilege and separation of duties.

Box 1: Yes

Azure AD supports custom roles.

Box 2: Yes

Global Administrator has access to all administrative features in Azure Active Directory. Box 3: No

Microsoft states that Microsoft Sentinel includes connectors for both Microsoft and non-Microsoft sources. The product overview explains that Sentinel “comes with built-in connectors” for services such as Microsoft 365, Defender, and Azure sources, and also built-in connectors for non-Microsoft solutions like firewalls and other security products. Therefore, the claim that data connectors support only Microsoft services is false.

For visualization and monitoring, the documentation clarifies that “Microsoft Sentinel uses Azure Monitor workbooks to provide rich visualizations of your data.” Workbooks are the native dashboarding framework in Sentinel and can be customized to monitor logs, incidents, and telemetry that Sentinel ingests. Hence, using Azure Monitor Workbooks to monitor data collected by Sentinel is true.

Regarding threat hunting, Microsoft describes the Hunting capability as a proactive feature: “Hunting lets you proactively hunt for security threats,” using Kusto Query Language queries and analytic patterns to find indicators of compromise before alerts are generated. Analysts can run, save, and schedule hunts to uncover suspicious activity that hasn’t yet raised an alert, making the statement about identifying threats before an alert is triggered true.

Microsoft positions Compliance Manager as a capability available inside the Microsoft 365 Compliance Center (now Microsoft Purview compliance portal). In Microsoft’s SCI learning content, Compliance Manager is described as the centralized workspace in the compliance portal that “helps you manage your organization’s compliance requirements,” providing a compliance score, pre-built and custom assessments, and improvement actions you track and assign. The documentation explains that admins “use the Microsoft 365 Compliance Center to access Compliance Manager,” where they can review the score, map controls to regulations and standards, and manage evidence and testing of controls. It also clarifies that Compliance Manager is surfaced directly in the compliance portal navigation, enabling authorized roles (such as Compliance Administrator, Global Administrator, or Compliance Data Administrator) to open the Compliance Manager blade to create or view assessments, assign actions, and review detailed guidance. By contrast, the Microsoft 365 admin center focuses on tenant, billing, and user management; the Microsoft 365 Defender portal focuses on security operations and threat protection; and the Microsoft Support portal is for service requests. Therefore, the direct and intended entry point for Compliance Manager is the Microsoft 365 Compliance Center.

In the Microsoft Purview compliance portal, administrators can tailor the user experience to match the roles and responsibilities of users in the organization. One key feature provided to enable this customization is the “Customize navigation” option.

According to Microsoft’s Security, Compliance, and Identity (SCI) learning paths and SC-series certification materials (especially SC-400 and SC-900), the Customize navigation option in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal is used to add, remove, or rearrange features in the navigation pane. This is especially useful for compliance or security administrators who want to streamline the portal for ease of use or hide sections that are not relevant to their work.

The SCI documentation states:

“The Microsoft Purview compliance portal provides a Customize navigation option that allows admins to personalize the left-hand navigation pane. This feature supports removing unused features or rearranging the order in which services appear, improving navigation efficiency and reducing clutter.”

This setting does not change permissions or access to features but purely controls the visibility and layout for users. The other listed options like Compliance Manager, Policies, and Settings are functional sections of the portal, but only "Customize navigation" is explicitly designed to manage the visual layout and visibility of the features shown in the portal's navigation pane.

The Service Trust Portal is Microsoft’s public-facing portal that centralizes how Microsoft manages privacy, compliance, and security for its cloud services. It provides independent audit reports, compliance guides, data protection resources, and details on Microsoft’s internal controls and practices. It’s the authoritative place to learn how Microsoft meets global, regional, and industry standards.

In Microsoft identity and access management terminology, federation refers to the establishment of a trust relationship between identity providers, which enables single sign-on (SSO) across different organizations or platforms.

According to the Microsoft Security, Compliance, and Identity (SCI) learning path, particularly in the SC-900 and SC-300 certifications, the following definition is provided:

“Federation is a means of establishing trust between two identity systems. This trust allows users from one domain to access resources in another domain without needing to authenticate again, typically using SAML, WS-Federation, or OAuth protocols.”

This concept is essential in cross-organization SSO scenarios, such as enabling users from one enterprise (or identity provider) to authenticate with services hosted in another, using existing credentials.

SCI documentation further states:

“Single sign-on (SSO) between multiple identity providers is enabled through federation protocols, which delegate authentication and allow token-based identity propagation across systems.”

The other options are not accurate in this context:

Integration is a vague term and not specific to SSO configuration.

Password hash synchronization and pass-through authentication are Azure AD authentication methods used for hybrid identity with on-premises AD, not for federating with external identity providers.

✅ Therefore, SSO configured between multiple identity providers is best classified as an example of federation.

In Microsoft Defender for Cloud (formerly Azure Security Center), Secure score is defined as “a measurement of an organization’s security posture; the higher the score, the lower the identified risk.” Microsoft states that Defender for Cloud provides security recommendations that “help you harden your resources and increase your secure score.” Among these recommendations is “Apply system updates” for virtual machines—Microsoft describes it as ensuring that “machines should have the latest security updates installed”, and completing this action adds points to your secure score because it remediates a vulnerability class (missing patches).

Defender for Cloud also supports wide scope evaluation: you can “view and manage the secure score across subscriptions and management groups,” allowing organizations with multiple Azure subscriptions to see an aggregated and per-scope score and track improvement actions consistently.

Identity protections are part of Defender for Cloud’s recommendations as well. Under the Azure Security Benchmark controls, Defender for Cloud includes the recommendation that “MFA should be enabled on accounts with owner permissions on your subscription.” Implementing this MFA control earns secure-score points because it mitigates high-impact identity risks.

Therefore, applying system updates (Yes), evaluating across multiple subscriptions (Yes), and enabling MFA (Yes) all increase or contribute to an organization’s secure score in Azure Security Center/Defender for Cloud.

Microsoft states that Identity Protection is used to “detect potential vulnerabilities affecting your organization’s identities, configure automated responses, and investigate suspicious actions related to your organization’s identities.” It evaluates user risk and sign-in risk using detections such as “leaked credentials, anonymous IP address, unfamiliar sign-in properties, [and] impossible travel.” These built-in detections confirm that the service can detect whether valid user credentials have been found in public or criminal datasets—commonly referred to as leaked credentials—thereby reducing identity compromise risk.

Identity Protection includes policy controls that “automate the response to detected risks,” specifically the User risk policy and Sign-in risk policy. Microsoft describes that these policies can “require password change when user risk is detected” and “require multi-factor authentication when sign-in risk is detected.” Therefore, Identity Protection can invoke MFA based on risk as part of Conditional Access–backed risk policies.

However, Identity Protection does not perform group lifecycle management. Microsoft positions group membership automation under Azure AD dynamic groups/Identity Governance, not Identity Protection. Consequently, adding users to groups based on risk level is not a function of Identity Protection, which focuses on detection, risk evaluation, and policy-driven remediation (e.g., MFA or password reset), not group assignment.

Within Microsoft Purview, Insider Risk Management is the solution that is explicitly designed to detect activities such as IP theft and data leakage. Microsoft describes it as a compliance solution that correlates many user and system signals to identify potentially malicious or inadvertent insider risks, including leaks of sensitive data and data spillage.

Organizations create Insider Risk Management policies that watch for risky behaviors such as unusual file downloads, copying data to removable media, or sharing sensitive information to external locations. When configured with templates like Data leaks, these policies can use high-severity alerts from Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies as triggers, so that suspected data-leak events automatically generate alerts and cases for investigation. This workflow lets investigators quickly triage, investigate, and remediate possible data-exfiltration incidents.

The other options serve different purposes. Compliance Manager evaluates and tracks compliance posture against regulations and internal controls, rather than monitoring user behavior for leaks. Communication compliance focuses on inappropriate or non-compliant messages (such as harassment or improper sharing in chats and email). eDiscovery is used to find and preserve existing content for legal or investigative cases, not for proactive detection of leakage as it occurs.

Therefore, the Microsoft Purview solution used to identify data leakage is Insider Risk Management.

Explanation

Azure AD Password Protection detects and blocks known weak passwords and their variants, and can also block additional weak terms that are specific to your organization.

With Azure AD Password Protection, default global banned password lists are automatically applied to all users in an Azure AD tenant. To support your own business and security needs, you can define entries in a custom banned password list.

Security defaults make it easy to protect your organization with the following preconfigured security settings:

Requiring all users to register for Azure AD Multi-Factor Authentication.

Requiring administrators to do multi-factor authentication.

Blocking legacy authentication protocols.

Requiring users to do multi-factor authentication when necessary.

Protecting privileged activities like access to the Azure portal.

In Microsoft Sentinel, Logic Apps are used as playbooks for automation and orchestration (SOAR)—to take actions after alerts/incidents occur (notify, enrich, remediate). They are not the component that detects or identifies anomalies; detections come from analytics rules, UEBA (user and entity behavior analytics), Fusion (ML-powered correlation), and anomaly rules. Workbooks are interactive dashboards and visualizations for monitoring and reporting; they don’t correlate alerts. Correlation of alerts into incidents is handled by analytics rules (including alert grouping and Fusion) within Sentinel’s detection pipeline. Finally, Sentinel’s Hunting experience provides KQL-based queries and templates that are mapped to the MITRE ATT&CK tactics/techniques, enabling analysts to explore threats in a framework-aligned way. Thus, automation via Logic Apps ≠ anomaly detection; Workbooks ≠ incident correlation; Hunting tooling does align to MITRE ATT&CK.

Microsoft explains that Conditional Access (CA) evaluates signals and then enforces access decisions using grant and session controls: “Conditional Access policies are enforced after first-factor authentication is completed” and are used to “make access control decisions.” CA policies target users and groups—including administrators—unless explicitly excluded. Microsoft guidance recommends excluding only break-glass accounts: “Customers with Azure AD roles such as Global administrator should have at least one emergency access account excluded from policies.” This means admins are not exempt by default; they are in scope unless you configure exclusions.

CA does not manage directory role assignments; that is handled by role assignment and Privileged Identity Management (PIM). CA’s grant controls focus on access conditions: “Grant access… Require multi-factor authentication” and Microsoft lists a common baseline: “Require multi-factor authentication for all users.” Therefore, CA can require MFA to access cloud apps, but it cannot add users to Azure AD roles.

These statements from Microsoft’s SCI materials confirm the outcomes: Admins are not inherently exempt (No), CA cannot assign roles (No), and CA can force MFA for app access (Yes).

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Microsoft’s Windows Hello for Business replaces passwords with strong, two-factor authentication that is tied to the device and unlocked with a user gesture. The Microsoft Learn description states that Windows Hello for Business “replaces passwords with strong authentication” and that “users sign in using a gesture, such as a PIN, facial recognition, or fingerprint.” It further clarifies that the credential is protected by the device’s secure hardware and that the gesture (PIN or biometric) unlocks the private key used to authenticate. The guidance explains that “biometrics (face or fingerprint) or a PIN” are supported as the user’s sign-in method, and that the PIN “is unique to the device” and does not roam, reducing attack surface.

By contrast, email verification and security questions are not authentication gestures for Windows Hello for Business. They are not listed as supported methods for unlocking the Hello for Business key or completing interactive sign-in to Windows. Therefore, the three supported Windows Hello for Business authentication methods from the options provided are fingerprint, facial recognition, and PIN. This aligns with Microsoft’s documented model where the user enrolls a biometric (face or fingerprint) or creates a PIN, and subsequently uses that gesture to unlock the hardware-bound credential for secure sign-in and access to resources.

Microsoft Cloud App Security (now Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps) is Microsoft’s CASB that “discovers and controls shadow IT,” integrates with identity and endpoint signals, and enforces data protection in SaaS and custom apps. SCI materials describe three core use cases relevant here: (1) Discovery and control of shadow IT by analyzing network logs and app usage, rating risk, and applying governance—matching A. (2) Protect sensitive information hosted anywhere in the cloud via policies such as DLP, information protection label awareness, and integration with apps through API connectors—matching C. (3) Prevent data leaks to noncompliant apps and limit access to regulated data using Conditional Access App Control and session controls that can block download, apply protections, or monitor in real time—matching E. In contrast, secure connections to Azure virtual machines are provided by Azure Bastion, not the CASB (eliminating B), and pass-through authentication to on-premises apps is delivered by Azure AD features such as Azure AD Application Proxy or PTA (not Cloud App Security), eliminating D.

Azure Firewall is a managed, cloud-based network security service designed to secure traffic inside and across Azure Virtual Networks. Microsoft describes Azure Firewall as a stateful firewall that “protects Azure Virtual Network resources” by enforcing network and application rules, central logging, and threat intelligence–based filtering. Because it is deployed into a VNet/subnet (often as the hub in a hub-and-spoke), it directly governs East/West and North/South flows to workloads such as Azure virtual machines and platform services reachable through the VNet, using DNAT/SNAT and rule collections. Microsoft guidance highlights capabilities to “centrally create, enforce, and log application and network connectivity policies across subscriptions and virtual networks,” and to filter traffic for peered VNets, branch connections (VPN/ExpressRoute), and internet traffic. These capabilities explicitly map to protecting Azure virtual networks and the VMs and subnets inside them. In contrast, Azure AD users, Exchange Online inboxes, and SharePoint Online sites are SaaS/identity resources protected by Microsoft Entra controls, Exchange/SharePoint security, and Purview/Defender for Office 365—not by a VNet firewall. Therefore, the Azure Firewall–protectable resource types among the options are Azure virtual machines and Azure virtual networks.

Microsoft states that Azure Bastion is a fully managed PaaS service that provides “secure and seamless RDP/SSH connectivity to your virtual machines directly in the Azure portal over SSL” and “eliminates the need to expose public IP addresses on your VMs.” With Bastion, users open the VM blade in the Azure portal and launch an in-browser RDP or SSH session; no separate RDP or SSH client is required because the session is proxied through Bastion using HTTPS/TLS. The platform is designed to be agentless and browser-based, providing connectivity without VPN or jump hosts and enforcing least-exposure by keeping management ports off the internet. While traditional tools such as Remote Desktop Connection or an SSH client are common for direct access, Bastion’s prescribed access method in Microsoft guidance is to initiate the session from the Azure portal. PowerShell remoting is unrelated to Bastion’s web-based brokering. Therefore, to connect to an Azure virtual machine by using Azure Bastion, you use the Azure portal.

access

In Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD), dynamic groups are a key feature used to automate the access lifecycle for users and devices. SCI learning material on identity governance explains that organizations can automate the access lifecycle process through technologies such as dynamic groups, alongside automated user provisioning. These resources describe the access lifecycle as managing a user’s access to resources from the moment they join the organization, through role or department changes, until they leave. Dynamic groups help with this by using attribute-based rules (for example, department, job title, location, or device platform) to automatically add or remove identities from groups as their attributes change.

Because group membership typically controls access to applications, SharePoint sites, Teams, and licenses, this automatic membership update keeps access aligned with the user’s current role without manual intervention. When a user changes departments, the dynamic rules reevaluate and move them into the appropriate groups, granting new access and removing old access as required. This is exactly what Microsoft refers to as automating the access lifecycle.

The other options do not match the terminology used in SCI content: “object lifecycle” is not the term used in Entra identity governance, and “privileged access” lifecycle is handled specifically by Privileged Identity Management (PIM), not by dynamic groups. Therefore, the sentence is correctly completed with access.

Microsoft 365 Endpoint Data Loss Prevention (Endpoint DLP) extends DLP controls to endpoints. Microsoft documentation describes Endpoint DLP as applying protections on “Windows 10/11 devices” (and, in current guidance, also macOS). The feature monitors and restricts actions like copying to USB, printing, or uploading to the web when sensitive items are involved. Importantly, Microsoft does not document Endpoint DLP support for iOS or Android; those platforms are governed through app protection policies in Intune and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint mobile capabilities, not Endpoint DLP. Given the answer choices provided, the only correct option that aligns with Microsoft’s Endpoint DLP platform support and excludes unsupported mobile OSs is Windows 10 only (noting that Microsoft also supports Windows 11 and macOS today, which are absent from the choices). Therefore, among the listed options, Windows 10 only is the correct selection because Endpoint DLP does not run on iOS or Android.

In Microsoft 365 compliance, sensitivity labels (Microsoft Purview Information Protection) are the feature designed to classify and automatically protect data. Microsoft states that sensitivity labels “let you classify and protect your organization’s data” and that a label “can apply protection settings such as encryption” to files and emails. Labels can be deployed so that protection is applied without user action: Microsoft explains that labels “can be applied automatically, recommended, or by users,” and that administrators can “auto-apply a sensitivity label to content in SharePoint, OneDrive, and Exchange based on conditions such as sensitive info types, keywords, or trainable classifiers.” When a label with protection is applied, “encryption settings travel with the content” and enforce usage rights like who can open, print, or forward, even outside the organization.

By contrast, Content Search and eDiscovery are discovery/investigative tools and do not enforce protection. Retention policies manage how long content is kept or deleted, but they don’t encrypt content. Therefore, the Microsoft 365 compliance capability that encrypts content automatically based on specific conditions is sensitivity labels with auto-labeling policies in Microsoft Purview.

In Microsoft’s SCI learning content, the core objective of protecting information is framed by the CIA triad. Microsoft explains that “confidentiality, integrity, and availability are foundational security principles.” Within this model, integrity is described as the assurance that information remains trustworthy and unchanged from its intended state. The SCI materials state that integrity means “preventing unauthorized modification and ensuring the accuracy and completeness of data.” When a requirement says, “ensuring that the data you retrieve is the same as the data you stored,” it directly maps to this integrity principle—verifying that data hasn’t been altered, corrupted, or tampered with during storage or transmission.

Microsoft’s guidance further highlights that integrity is supported by controls that “detect or prevent unauthorized changes,” including cryptographic hashes, checksums, and digital signatures that can “provide proof that content hasn’t been modified.” By contrast, confidentiality focuses on restricting access (for example, through least privilege and encryption), and availability focuses on “reliable and timely access to information and systems.” Because the scenario emphasizes that the retrieved data is identical to the stored data, it is not about access or uptime but about preserving correctness and detecting alteration—which is precisely the integrity objective in Microsoft’s Security, Compliance, and Identity guidance.

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is the Microsoft 365 solution designed to protect users from threats delivered through email and collaboration workloads. SCI training material explains that Defender for Office 365 protects Exchange Online, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint Online, and OneDrive for Business by detecting and blocking malware, phishing, and other advanced attacks that use messages and shared content as the delivery channel.

A key capability is Safe Links, which specifically protects against malicious URLs. When a user receives an email, Teams chat message, or channel post that contains a hyperlink, Safe Links scans and rewrites that URL. At the moment the user clicks, the link is checked again; if it is identified as malicious or leads to a known phishing or malware-hosting site, access is blocked and a warning page is shown. This time-of-click protection is emphasized in Microsoft’s security documentation as a primary defense against weaponized links in email and collaborative communications.

By comparison, Microsoft Defender for Identity focuses on detecting identity-related threats in on-premises Active Directory, Defender for Endpoint protects devices and endpoints, and Defender for Cloud Apps secures SaaS applications and shadow IT. None of these are the primary solution for blocking malicious links in email, chats, and channels. Therefore, the correct choice is Microsoft Defender for Office 365.

Microsoft’s sensitivity labels (Microsoft Purview Information Protection) support user-driven labeling: “Users can manually apply sensitivity labels to files and emails” and organizations can also configure automatic or recommended labeling. This confirms that end users are permitted to choose a label themselves when policy allows. Microsoft also clarifies the cardinality for items: “A document or email can have only a single sensitivity label applied to it at a time.” Therefore, applying multiple sensitivity labels to the same file is not supported (labels are mutually exclusive on a given item). In addition to classification, labels can enforce protection and visual markings: “When you configure a sensitivity label, you can add protection settings such as encryption and content marking (headers, footers, and watermarks).” Word, Excel, and PowerPoint honor these content markings, so a label can automatically stamp a watermark on a Word document while embedding the label metadata for persistent protection. Together, these authoritative statements from Microsoft’s SCI documentation establish the correct responses: Yes (manual application), No (only one label per file), and Yes (labels can apply watermarks).

Microsoft Entra Access Reviews are designed to help organizations regularly validate and right-size access. Microsoft’s documentation explains that access reviews can target group memberships, enterprise app assignments, Azure AD roles, and Azure resource roles (via Privileged Identity Management), allowing reviewers to assess whether users, service principals, or groups should retain access to Azure resources—confirming the first statement. Access Reviews support automation: you can configure a review to “Auto-apply results”, so when the review ends, users who were denied or not reviewed are automatically removed from the group, application assignment, or role—validating the second statement. Finally, Access Reviews are a Premium P2 capability (now Microsoft Entra ID P2) alongside PIM and advanced identity governance. They are not included in all service plans; tenants require the appropriate P2 licenses for reviewers and users in scope—therefore the third statement is No.

In Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD), Managed Identities for Azure resources are the built-in way for an Azure resource to authenticate to other Azure services without storing credentials. Microsoft’s documentation states: “Managed identities for Azure resources provide Azure services with an automatically managed identity in Azure Active Directory.” It further distinguishes the two types and clarifies the one used here: “A system-assigned managed identity is enabled directly on an Azure service instance. When enabled, Azure creates an identity for the instance in Azure AD.” Microsoft also emphasizes the lifecycle binding: “This identity is tied to the lifecycle of that service instance and is deleted when the resource is deleted.” Once enabled, the resource can call Azure services by requesting tokens: “You can use this identity to obtain Azure AD tokens for authentication to services that support Azure AD authentication.”

Because the prompt explicitly says “system-assigned”, the correct completion is managed identity. The other options do not match Microsoft’s definition: a user identity refers to a human user; a service principal is the underlying object applications use but isn’t what Azure terms “system-assigned”; and an Azure AD–joined device pertains to device registration, not resource-to-service authentication. Therefore, the sentence correctly reads: “An Azure resource can use a system-assigned managed identity to access Azure services.”

Microsoft Azure Sentinel is a scalable, cloud-native, security information event management (SIEM) and security orchestration automated response (SOAR) solution.

Microsoft Entra Conditional Access evaluates signals to make real-time access decisions. Microsoft describes it as bringing “signals together to make decisions and enforce organizational policies,” where administrators choose controls such as Block access, Require multi-factor authentication, Require device to be marked as compliant, or Require hybrid Azure AD joined device. Because MFA is only one of several grant controls, it is incorrect that policies always enforce MFA; they can also simply block, allow, or require other conditions.

Location is a first-class condition. Microsoft states you can define named locations (by countries/regions or IP ranges) and then use them in policy conditions to block or grant access. A common scenario is “Block access from specific locations” or require additional controls when a sign-in originates from an untrusted network. Therefore, Conditional Access can block access to an application based on user location.

Finally, Conditional Access targets users, groups, workload identities, and cloud apps regardless of device join state. Device-related conditions and filters are optional; policies are not limited to “Azure AD-joined devices.” Controls like Require device to be marked as compliant or Require Hybrid Azure AD joined device are only enforced if configured. Hence, Conditional Access does not only affect users on Azure AD-joined devices.

Explanation

In Microsoft’s hybrid identity guidance, Azure AD Connect is the supported tool to bridge on-premises Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) with Azure Active Directory (Azure AD). Microsoft Learn describes it plainly: “Azure AD Connect is Microsoft’s tool for connecting on-premises directories to Azure AD.” It “synchronizes user, group, and device objects” so cloud identities stay aligned with on-premises accounts and attributes. Azure AD Connect also supports multiple sign-in methods: “password hash synchronization, pass-through authentication, and federation integration.” In other words, you can sync identities and choose how users authenticate to Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD).

By contrast, Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) is a federation service used for claims-based authentication; it does not perform directory synchronization. Azure Sentinel (now Microsoft Sentinel) is a cloud-native SIEM/SOAR and is unrelated to identity sync. Privileged Identity Management (PIM) is an identity governance feature for just-in-time privileged access; it does not synchronize identities. Therefore, in a hybrid identity model where the requirement is to sync identities between AD DS and Azure AD, the correct Microsoft-endorsed solution is Azure AD Connect, which “keeps identities in sync between on-premises directories and Azure AD.”

Conditional access policies always enforce MFA = NoMicrosoft Entra Conditional Access policies are flexible and do not always require MFA. MFA is one possible control, but policies can enforce other access controls such as requiring a compliant device, blocking access entirely, requiring Terms of Use acceptance, or enforcing session controls.

SCI Extract: “Conditional Access is the tool used by Azure AD to bring signals together, to make decisions, and enforce organizational policies. These policies can require MFA, but it is not mandatory for all policies.”

Block access based on location = YesConditional Access supports location-based conditions using named locations (such as country or IP ranges). Policies can block or allow access based on where the user is signing in from.

SCI Extract: “Administrators can use Conditional Access policies to block or grant access based on user location, using named locations to define trusted or risky areas.”

Only affects Entra joined devices = NoConditional Access applies to all users and devices, including:

Entra-joined,

Hybrid Entra-joined,

Registered devices (via Microsoft Intune or Azure AD),

And even unmanaged (BYOD) devices depending on configuration.

SCI Extract: “Conditional Access policies apply to all users and devices based on selected conditions, not only Microsoft Entra joined devices.”

Microsoft’s SCI guidance defines the supported passwordless methods in Entra ID (Azure AD). The documentation states: “Microsoft recommends three passwordless authentication options: Windows Hello for Business, FIDO2 security keys, and the Microsoft Authenticator app (phone sign-in).” Windows Hello for Business “replaces passwords with strong two-factor authentication on Windows devices,” allowing users to sign in with a gesture (biometric or PIN) that does not require a password during interactive sign-in. Likewise, “FIDO2 security keys enable users to sign in using an external security key,” providing a standards-based passwordless credential that can work across supported browsers and devices.

By contrast, OATH software tokens (for example, time-based one-time passcodes in an authenticator app) are documented as multifactor verification methods: “OATH software tokens generate time-based codes used for MFA.” These OTP codes serve as a second factor and are not a passwordless primary sign-in method; users typically still enter a password and then the OTP. Therefore: software tokens → No (not passwordless), Windows Hello → Yes, FIDO2 security keys → Yes. This mapping aligns directly with Microsoft’s Entra ID passwordless authentication guidance and the delineation between passwordless sign-in and MFA second-factor methods.

 Enabling multi-factor authentication (MFA) increases the Microsoft Secure Score. Yes

 A higher Microsoft Secure Score means a lower identified risk level in the Microsoft 365 tenant. Yes

 Microsoft Secure Score measures progress in completing actions based on controls that include key regulations and standards for data protection and governance. No

Microsoft Secure Score is a measurement of an organization’s security posture in Microsoft 365. The SCI materials explain that Secure Score is calculated from improvement actions such as requiring multi-factor authentication for users, especially administrators. When you configure and enforce MFA, you complete one of these recommended actions, and Secure Score awards points, so enabling MFA directly increases Microsoft Secure Score.

The documentation further states that Secure Score reflects how many recommended security controls you have implemented. A higher score indicates that more recommended controls are in place, which reduces exposure to common threats and therefore represents a lower residual risk level in the tenant. While it is not an absolute guarantee of security, it is an indicator that risk has been reduced compared to a lower score.

The third statement, however, describes the purpose of Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager and its compliance score, which tracks progress against controls mapped to regulations and standards for data protection and governance. Secure Score does not measure alignment with regulatory frameworks; it is focused on technical security configurations and behaviors in Microsoft 365. Therefore, that statement is No.

Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager organizes improvement actions into control action subcategories that mirror core security control types used throughout Microsoft Learn’s SCI content: preventative, detective, and corrective. In the SC-900 security fundamentals guidance, Microsoft describes these control types as follows: “Preventive controls are intended to deter or stop an attack from occurring (for example, encryption and access controls). Detective controls are used to discover and detect attacks that are in progress or have occurred (for example, logging, auditing, and monitoring). Corrective controls are used to limit the damage caused by an incident and to return systems to normal operations (for example, configuration changes, incident response, and recovery activities).”

Applying those definitions to Compliance Manager actions: Encrypt data at rest is a preventative control because it deters exposure by protecting data before an event. Perform a system access audit is a detective action because auditing and reviewing access logs are used to discover and detect misuse or anomalies. Make configuration changes in response to a security incident is a corrective action because it remediates and restores the environment after detection, aligning with Compliance Manager’s corrective action guidance. These mappings reflect how Compliance Manager measures completion of improvement actions that reduce compliance risk through the right mix of preventative, detective, and corrective controls.

In Microsoft identity terminology, authentication is the step that proves who the user is when they attempt to sign in. Microsoft Learn defines it plainly: “Authentication is the process of proving the identity of a user, device, or service.” By contrast, “Authorization is the process of determining what a user, device, or service can do.” During sign-in to Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD), “the identity provider validates credentials and, upon successful authentication, issues tokens that applications use to grant access.” Microsoft further explains the available methods: “Microsoft Entra ID supports multiple authentication methods, including passwords, multi-factor authentication, FIDO2 security keys, certificate-based authentication, and federated authentication.”

Auditing and administration are not the mechanisms that verify identity at sign-in. Auditing “records security-relevant events for investigation and compliance,” while administration “refers to configuring and managing identities, access policies, and settings.” Therefore, in the sentence “When users sign in, _____ verifies their credentials to prove their identity,” the correct completion is authentication, because it is the control that validates the user’s credentials and establishes identity before any authorization decisions are made.

Microsoft documents describe Microsoft Entra Privileged Identity Management (PIM) as the service that delivers approval-based, time-limited elevation to privileged roles. Official guidance states: “Privileged Identity Management (PIM) enables you to manage, control, and monitor access to important resources in Microsoft Entra ID, Azure, and Microsoft 365.” PIM specifically supports just-in-time and time-bound activations: “PIM provides just-in-time privileged access to Microsoft Entra roles and Azure resources” and “allows you to make access time-bound by setting start and end dates.” It also supports approval workflows: “You can require approval to activate privileged roles, and designate approvers to receive and approve requests.” Additional controls include “require multi-factor authentication to activate, provide a justification, and ticket number,” and auditing: “PIM records all activations and changes for review and alerting.”

By contrast, Microsoft Entra ID Protection focuses on risk detections and automated remediation, not role elevation workflows. Conditional Access enforces access policies at sign-in and session but does not provide approval-based role activation. Access Reviews help you “review and attest to continued access” but do not supply just-in-time elevation. Therefore, the Microsoft Purview/Entra feature that implements approval-based, time-bound role activation is Microsoft Entra Privileged Identity Management (PIM).

In Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD), self-service password reset (SSPR) is the feature that explicitly supports email as an authentication method when users need to verify their identity to reset or unlock their password.

According to Microsoft’s identity and access documentation and the SCI learning content, SSPR lets administrators choose which verification methods are available to users, such as mobile phone, office phone, mobile app, security questions, and email. When email is enabled, a verification code can be sent to a registered alternate email address. The user proves their identity by entering this code, which is treated as an authentication step in the SSPR process.

By contrast:

Microsoft Entra Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) does not support email as an MFA method; it focuses on methods like authenticator apps, phone calls, and text messages.

Microsoft Entra ID Protection detects and responds to risky sign-ins and users but does not provide email-based authentication.

Microsoft Entra Password Protection deals with banned and compromised passwords, not with email verification.

Therefore, the only option in the list that uses email as a supported authentication method is self-service password reset (SSPR).

To on-board Azure Sentinel, you first need to connect to your security sources. Azure Sentinel comes with a number of connectors for Microsoft solutions, including Microsoft 365 Defender solutions, and Microsoft 365 sources, including Office 365, Azure AD, Microsoft Defender for Identity, and Microsoft Cloud App Security, etc.

Box 1: Yes

The MailItemsAccessed event is a mailbox auditing action and is triggered when mail data is accessed by mail protocols and mail clients.

Box 2: No

Basic Audit retains audit records for 90 days.

Advanced Audit retains all Exchange, SharePoint, and Azure Active Directory audit records for one year. This is accomplished by a default audit log retention policy that retains any audit record that contains the value of Exchange, SharePoint, or AzureActiveDirectory for the Workload property (which indicates the service in which the activity occurred) for one year.

Box 3: yes

Advanced Audit in Microsoft 365 provides high-bandwidth access to the Office 365 Management Activity API.

No

No

Yes

Microsoft states that Communication Compliance is administered in Microsoft Purview, not the Microsoft 365 admin center. The Learn article shows configuration and policy templates “in the Microsoft Purview portal” and directs admins to “configure Communication Compliance” there, confirming the management plane is the Purview compliance portal, not the M365 admin center.

Regarding supported locations, Microsoft lists the communication channels that policies can inspect: “Microsoft Teams… Exchange Online… Viva Engage… [and] Third-party sources.” SharePoint Online is not listed among supported channels, so SharePoint content isn’t monitored by Communication Compliance policies.

Finally, Communication Compliance includes built-in workflows to address findings. The Learn page explicitly provides a Remediate step: “Remediate Communication Compliance issues you investigate by using the following options:” such as “Notify the user” and “Escalate to another reviewer.” These actions demonstrate that the solution does more than detect; it supports remediation within the Purview portal workflow.

Exact extracts (selected):

“You can choose from the following policy templates in the Microsoft Purview portal.”

“Communication Compliance policies check… Microsoft Teams… Exchange Online… Viva Engage… Third-party sources.”

“Remediate Communication Compliance issues you investigate by using the following options: Notify the user… Escalate to another reviewer.”

In the Microsoft 365 Defender (Microsoft Defender XDR) portal, the Reports area is the feature designed to surface security trends and provide protection status views across workloads, including identities. Microsoft guidance explains that the Reports workspace offers curated dashboards and exportable reports for specific domains (for example, Identities, Email & collaboration, Endpoints), so security teams can review trend lines, coverage/health, and status without running queries. For identities specifically (backed by Microsoft Defender for Identity), the reports include overview dashboards and scheduled/on-demand reports that show items such as identity security posture, open health issues, alert volumes over time, and sensor/coverage status. This aligns with SCI learning paths that distinguish portal areas by purpose: Secure score is a measurement of overall posture and recommended actions, Incidents is for triage and response to individual cases, and Hunting is for ad-hoc, query-driven investigations. When the task is to “view security trends and track the protection status of identities,” Microsoft directs administrators to the Reports > Identities experience in the Defender portal, which provides the built-in, continuously updated visualizations and summaries required for ongoing monitoring.

Onboarding Microsoft Sentinel starts by enabling Sentinel on an existing Log Analytics workspace and then connecting data sources so analytics can operate on ingested security data. Microsoft’s Sentinel onboarding guidance emphasizes that after you add Sentinel to a workspace, you must “connect Microsoft services, non-Microsoft solutions, and custom sources” using built-in data connectors. Microsoft also states that “you need data in your workspace before you can use Microsoft Sentinel’s analytics, hunting, and investigation capabilities.” Features such as custom analytics rules, hunting queries, and incident correlation depend on ingested telemetry from sources like Microsoft Entra ID sign-in logs, Microsoft 365, Defender products, firewalls, and other appliances. Because the question already gives you a Log Analytics workspace (the prerequisite for enabling Sentinel), the first action in the onboarding workflow that unlocks Sentinel’s value is to connect your security sources. Only after data is flowing should you proceed to create analytics rules, hunting queries, and incident processes. Therefore, the correct first step to onboard Microsoft Sentinel is connect to your security sources.