MS-900 Practice Question: Describe security, compliance, privacy, and trust in Microsoft 365
A company needs to audit user activities in Microsoft 365 for compliance. Which tool should they use?
⚠ Common exam trap
MS-900 often tests the difference between security tools (Defender XDR, Sentinel) and compliance auditing tools (Purview Audit), so candidates may mistakenly choose a security information and event management (SIEM) solution like Sentinel when the requirement is specifically for auditing user activities for compliance.
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
✓
Microsoft Purview Audit (Premium)
Microsoft Purview Audit (Premium) is specifically designed to retain and search audit logs for user and admin activities across Microsoft 365 services, meeting compliance and forensic investigation needs. It provides high-bandwidth access to the Office 365 Audit Log, supports custom retention policies (up to 10 years), and offers intelligent insights such as high-value events and access to critical events like MailItemsAccessed. This makes it the correct tool for auditing user activities for compliance.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Microsoft Defender XDR
Why it's wrong here
Microsoft Defender XDR correlates and remediates threat signals across endpoints, identities, email and cloud apps; it does not provide the unified audit log search and retention needed for compliance reporting. It is tempting because it surfaces security incidents, and would be correct for investigating and responding to detected attacks rather than auditing user activity.
- ✗
Microsoft Sentinel
Why it's wrong here
Sentinel is a SIEM/SOAR platform that ingests logs for threat detection and automated response, not a compliance auditing tool. It is tempting because it aggregates Microsoft 365 audit data, but it would be the right choice for correlating security events and triggering incident playbooks, not for reviewing user activity for compliance.
- ✓
Microsoft Purview Audit (Premium)
Why this is correct
Microsoft Purview Audit (Premium) retains audit logs for up to ten years and provides high-bandwidth access plus intelligent insights, meeting the compliance auditing requirement. Standard Audit only retains events for 90 days, insufficient for long-term regulatory investigations.
- ✗
Microsoft Intune
Why it's wrong here
Microsoft Intune manages device configuration, compliance policies and application deployment; it does not record or search user activity events for compliance auditing. It is tempting because it provides inventory and reporting across enrolled devices, and would be correct for enforcing configuration baselines rather than auditing mailbox and file activity.
Go deeper
Related to this question
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Microsoft Compliance Manager and Score
Key term
Microsoft 365
Microsoft 365 is a subscription-based cloud service from Microsoft that combines productivity tools like Office apps with security, device management, and online storage.
Key term
User
A user is any person, system, or device that interacts with an IT service, resource, or identity system, typically authenticated through credentials and authorized to perform specific actions.
About these practice questions
This MS-900 question is part of Courseiva's 794-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. 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 MS-900 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 MS-900 exam.