SC-900 Timed Practice Test 1 — 10 Questions

Question 1

A company uses a cloud-based SaaS (Software as a Service) application for customer relationship management. According to the shared responsibility model, which security responsibility is primarily handled by the customer?

Accepted Answer

Managing user access and permissions for the application. In a SaaS model like a cloud-based CRM application, the customer is responsible for managing user access and permissions, including identity and access management (IAM), multi-factor authentication (MFA), and role-based access control (RBAC). The cloud provider handles the underlying infrastructure, platform, and application security, but the customer must control who can access the application and what they can do within it.

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Physical security of the data center hosting the application

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Security of the underlying networking infrastructure

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Applying security patches to the application's code

Question 2

A company has a document management system. The security policy requires that a user in the Sales department can only view documents related to sales and cannot access documents in the Finance or HR folders. Which security principle is being applied?

Accepted Answer

Least privilege. The security policy restricts a Sales user's access to only sales-related documents, explicitly denying access to Finance and HR folders. This aligns with the principle of least privilege, which mandates that users be granted only the minimum permissions necessary to perform their job functions. In Microsoft 365, this is implemented via role-based access control (RBAC) or sensitivity labels that enforce read-only access on specific SharePoint document libraries or folders.

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Availability

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Defense in depth

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Non-repudiation

Question 3

A company implements a security measure to ensure that only authorized employees can view sensitive customer records. Which principle of the CIA triad does this measure primarily protect?

Accepted Answer

Confidentiality. Confidentiality ensures that sensitive information is accessible only to authorized individuals. By restricting access to customer records to authorized employees, the company directly prevents unauthorized disclosure, which is the core goal of confidentiality in the CIA triad.

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Integrity

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Availability

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Accountability

Question 4

A company has a SharePoint Online site that stores project documents. Due to legal requirements, all documents in this site must be retained for exactly 5 years from the date they were created, and then automatically deleted. No user should be able to permanently delete a document before the retention period ends. Which Microsoft Purview solution should the administrator configure?

Accepted Answer

Retention policy. Option A is correct because a retention policy in Microsoft Purview can be configured to retain documents for exactly 5 years from creation and then automatically delete them. This policy enforces a mandatory retention period that prevents users from permanently deleting documents before the period ends, meeting the legal requirement.

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Sensitivity label

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Data loss prevention (DLP) policy

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Audit policy

Question 5

A company has deployed Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender for Office 365, Microsoft Defender for Identity, and Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps. The security operations team wants a single, unified portal where they can view alerts from all these products, perform cross-domain investigations, and orchestrate automated response actions. Which Microsoft security solution should they use?

Accepted Answer

Microsoft 365 Defender. Microsoft 365 Defender is the correct answer because it is a unified pre- and post-breach enterprise defense suite that natively coordinates detection, prevention, investigation, and response across endpoints, identities, email, and cloud applications. It provides a single portal (security.microsoft.com) where alerts from Defender for Endpoint, Defender for Office 365, Defender for Identity, and Defender for Cloud Apps are correlated into incidents, enabling cross-domain investigation and automated response via playbooks and the Microsoft 365 Defender API.

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Microsoft Sentinel

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Microsoft Defender for Cloud

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Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

Question 6

A company deploys firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and endpoint antivirus software at multiple layers of its network. This strategy is intended to ensure that if one security control fails, others still provide protection. Which security concept does this approach represent?

Accepted Answer

Defense in depth. Defense in depth is a security strategy that layers multiple independent controls—such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems (IDS), and endpoint antivirus—across different network segments. The core principle is that if one layer is breached or fails, subsequent layers continue to provide protection, ensuring no single point of failure compromises the entire security posture.

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Least privilege

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Separation of duties

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Zero trust

Question 7

A company deploys full disk encryption on all employee laptops to protect data in case a device is lost or stolen. Which security goal does this measure primarily address?

Accepted Answer

Confidentiality. Full disk encryption (FDE) ensures that data stored on the laptop's hard drive is unreadable without the correct decryption key. This directly protects the confidentiality of the data by preventing unauthorized access if the device is lost or stolen, as the encrypted data cannot be deciphered without the key.

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Integrity

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Availability

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Non-repudiation

Question 8

A company hosts a mission-critical customer portal on Azure virtual machines. To ensure continuous availability, they deploy the application across two separate Azure regions. If one region experiences a failure, traffic is automatically routed to the other region with minimal disruption. Which security goal is primarily being addressed by this architecture?

Accepted Answer

Availability. Deploying a mission-critical application across two Azure regions with automatic traffic routing directly addresses the security goal of availability. This architecture ensures that if one region fails, the application remains accessible from the other region, minimizing downtime. Azure Traffic Manager or Azure Front Door can be used to route traffic based on priority or latency, providing high availability and disaster recovery.

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Confidentiality

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Integrity

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Non-repudiation

Question 9

A company uses cryptographic hashes to verify that a downloaded software file has not been modified by an attacker during transmission. Which principle of the CIA triad is primarily being addressed?

Accepted Answer

Integrity. Cryptographic hashing (e.g., SHA-256) produces a fixed-size digest from the file's contents. By comparing the computed hash with the publisher's published hash, any change to the file—even a single bit—yields a completely different digest, proving the file has not been tampered with. This directly protects the integrity of the data, ensuring it remains unaltered during transit.

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Confidentiality

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Availability

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Non-repudiation

Question 10

A company implements a policy where each employee is granted only the permissions necessary to perform their specific job role. For example, a marketing specialist has read-only access to the customer database and cannot modify financial records. Which security principle is primarily being applied?

Accepted Answer

Least privilege. The principle of least privilege dictates that users should be granted only the permissions necessary to perform their job functions. In this scenario, the marketing specialist receives read-only access to the customer database and no access to financial records, which directly aligns with limiting permissions to the minimum required. This reduces the attack surface and limits potential damage from accidental or malicious actions.

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Defense in depth

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Zero Trust

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Separation of duties