- A
Conduct a manual audit of all service connections and variable groups every quarter, and revoke any permissions that are not needed. Disable service connections associated with the former employee.
Why wrong: Manual audits are not scalable and may miss issues between audits.
- B
Immediately delete all service connections associated with the former employee and recreate them using service principals with the least privilege. Then, update all pipelines to use the new connections.
Why wrong: Deleting connections may break running pipelines; it does not prevent recurrence.
- C
Restrict all service connections to use resource-group level scoped permissions instead of subscription-level. For variable groups, set them to be accessible only to specific pipelines.
Why wrong: This does not address the stale service principal issue and still requires manual cleanup of existing over-permissions.
- D
Implement Azure Policy to enforce that service connections cannot have subscription-level Contributor role; instead, require specific resource group roles. Use Azure AD access reviews to automatically remove stale service principals. Use pipeline decorators to enforce branch policy and approval checks on variable groups that contain secrets.
Azure Policy enforces least privilege automatically, access reviews remove stale principals, and pipeline decorators ensure compliance for variable groups.
AZ-400 Develop a security and compliance plan Practice Question
This AZ-400 practice question tests your understanding of develop a security and compliance plan. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
You are a DevOps engineer for a financial services company with strict regulatory compliance requirements (e.g., PCI-DSS, SOX). The company uses Azure DevOps for CI/CD and manages multiple projects. Each project has its own set of service connections, variable groups, and agent pools. The security team recently audited the environment and found that several service connections have been granted Contributor rights at the subscription level, and some variable groups are accessible by all pipelines across all projects. Additionally, audit logs show that a former employee's service principal still has active service connections in two projects. You need to implement a security and compliance plan to address these issues. Which approach should you take?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
Implement Azure Policy to enforce that service connections cannot have subscription-level Contributor role; instead, require specific resource group roles. Use Azure AD access reviews to automatically remove stale service principals. Use pipeline decorators to enforce branch policy and approval checks on variable groups that contain secrets.
Option D is correct because it provides a comprehensive, automated, and scalable approach to enforcing least privilege and compliance. Azure Policy can audit and enforce that service connections are scoped to resource groups rather than subscriptions, preventing over-permissioned Contributor access. Azure AD access reviews automate the detection and removal of stale service principals, addressing the former employee issue without manual effort. Pipeline decorators enforce mandatory approval checks and branch policies on variable groups containing secrets, ensuring that sensitive variables are not accessible to all pipelines across projects.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Conduct a manual audit of all service connections and variable groups every quarter, and revoke any permissions that are not needed. Disable service connections associated with the former employee.
Why it's wrong here
Manual audits are not scalable and may miss issues between audits.
- ✗
Immediately delete all service connections associated with the former employee and recreate them using service principals with the least privilege. Then, update all pipelines to use the new connections.
Why it's wrong here
Deleting connections may break running pipelines; it does not prevent recurrence.
- ✗
Restrict all service connections to use resource-group level scoped permissions instead of subscription-level. For variable groups, set them to be accessible only to specific pipelines.
Why it's wrong here
This does not address the stale service principal issue and still requires manual cleanup of existing over-permissions.
- ✓
Implement Azure Policy to enforce that service connections cannot have subscription-level Contributor role; instead, require specific resource group roles. Use Azure AD access reviews to automatically remove stale service principals. Use pipeline decorators to enforce branch policy and approval checks on variable groups that contain secrets.
Why this is correct
Azure Policy enforces least privilege automatically, access reviews remove stale principals, and pipeline decorators ensure compliance for variable groups.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often choose a manual or reactive approach (like Option A or B) because they focus on the immediate fix for the former employee, overlooking the need for automated, continuous enforcement that Azure Policy, access reviews, and pipeline decorators provide for long-term compliance.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Azure Policy uses policy definitions with 'deny' or 'audit' effects to prevent the creation of service connections with subscription-level Contributor roles, leveraging the Azure Resource Manager role-based access control (RBAC) model. Azure AD access reviews rely on recurring reviews of group memberships or application assignments, automatically removing service principals that have not signed in for a specified period (e.g., 30 days). Pipeline decorators are YAML-based templates injected at runtime by Azure Pipelines, allowing you to enforce mandatory approvals, branch policies, or secret scanning on variable groups without modifying individual pipeline definitions.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
- Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
- Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
- Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A company's IT admin needs to give a contractor read-only access to production logs without sharing account credentials. Using role-based access control (RBAC) and temporary scoped permissions — not a permanent shared password — is the correct pattern. Questions like this test whether you can apply least-privilege access across cloud identity services.
What to study next
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FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this AZ-400 question test?
Develop a security and compliance plan — This question tests Develop a security and compliance plan — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Implement Azure Policy to enforce that service connections cannot have subscription-level Contributor role; instead, require specific resource group roles. Use Azure AD access reviews to automatically remove stale service principals. Use pipeline decorators to enforce branch policy and approval checks on variable groups that contain secrets. — Option D is correct because it provides a comprehensive, automated, and scalable approach to enforcing least privilege and compliance. Azure Policy can audit and enforce that service connections are scoped to resource groups rather than subscriptions, preventing over-permissioned Contributor access. Azure AD access reviews automate the detection and removal of stale service principals, addressing the former employee issue without manual effort. Pipeline decorators enforce mandatory approval checks and branch policies on variable groups containing secrets, ensuring that sensitive variables are not accessible to all pipelines across projects.
What should I do if I get this AZ-400 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 11, 2026
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