DP-700 Ingest and Transform Data Practice Question
When ingesting data from an external source, what is the best practice for handling sensitive data?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often suggest hardcoding credentials or using environment variables, which are insecure practices compared to utilizing Azure Key Vault for centralized and encrypted secret management.
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
✓
Store secrets in an Azure Key Vault and reference them in the connection.
Sensitive data should be handled using Azure Key Vault to store secrets and connections. By referencing these keys in your Fabric pipeline, you avoid hardcoding credentials. Furthermore, you should use data masking or encryption at rest within the Lakehouse to ensure that sensitive fields remain protected even from unauthorized users who may have access to the underlying storage, fulfilling compliance and security requirements for enterprise data management.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Hardcode credentials in the pipeline JSON code.
Why it's wrong here
Hardcoding credentials is a severe security violation. It exposes sensitive information to anyone with read access to the pipeline definition. This practice is prohibited in any production environment and fails to meet even basic security compliance standards for protecting enterprise secrets and access tokens.
- ✓
Store secrets in an Azure Key Vault and reference them in the connection.
Why this is correct
Using Azure Key Vault is the standard, secure method for managing credentials. It centralizes secret management and allows for rotating credentials without updating the pipelines. This is the recommended approach for secure data engineering, ensuring that sensitive access keys are never exposed in the pipeline's configuration or code.
- ✗
Pass credentials as plain text parameters to the pipeline.
Why it's wrong here
Passing credentials as plain text parameters is essentially the same as hardcoding them. They are stored in clear text in the pipeline execution logs, making them visible to users who have permission to view pipeline runs, which is a major security risk for any organizational data platform.
- ✗
Use the same service principal for all external sources.
Why it's wrong here
Using a single service principal for all connections is a violation of the principle of least privilege. If that single principal is compromised, all your data sources are exposed. You should create specific service principals with restricted permissions for each individual data source to minimize potential impact.
About these practice questions
One of 152 original DP-700 practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Microsoft exam blueprint
This DP-700 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Microsoft certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the DP-700 exam.