SC-100 Practice Question: Recommend security best practices and priorities
This SC-100 practice question tests your understanding of recommend security best practices and priorities. 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.
A company uses Azure Policy to enforce compliance. They have a custom policy that denies creation of storage accounts without encryption enabled. A developer reports that they cannot create a storage account even though they specified encryption. What is the most likely cause?
Clue words in this question
Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.
Clue: "most likely"
Why it matters: Probability qualifier — the question wants the most probable cause or outcome, not a guaranteed one. Eliminate low-probability options.
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
The policy's 'then' block uses 'deny' but the condition logic evaluates the 'encryption' property incorrectly
Option C is correct because the most likely cause is that the policy's condition logic incorrectly evaluates the 'encryption' property. Azure Policy uses JSON-based condition expressions to check resource properties; if the condition does not match the actual property path (e.g., 'properties.encryption.enabled' vs. 'properties.encryption') or uses an incorrect operator, the deny effect will trigger even when encryption is specified. This is a common misconfiguration in custom policies.
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.
✗
The developer does not have 'Microsoft.Authorization/policyAssignments/write' permission
Why it's wrong here
Policy assignment permission is not required to create resources; it's required to assign policies.
✗
The policy effect is set to 'audit' instead of 'deny'
Why it's wrong here
Audit would log but not block creation.
✓
The policy's 'then' block uses 'deny' but the condition logic evaluates the 'encryption' property incorrectly
Why this is correct
If the condition does not match the actual property path, the deny may fire incorrectly.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "most likely" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
The policy is scoped to a management group that includes the developer's subscription
Why it's wrong here
Scope affects which resources are evaluated, but the developer's subscription is likely within scope.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often assume permission issues (Option A) or scope problems (Option D) are the cause, but the real issue is a misconfigured condition in the policy definition that fails to correctly match the encryption property.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Azure Policy evaluates resource properties using aliases like 'Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/encryption.services.blob.enabled'. If the custom policy uses an incorrect alias or a condition like 'equals: false' when the property is absent, the deny effect fires. Under the hood, Azure Policy's evaluation engine runs during resource creation (PUT) and checks the condition against the request payload; a mismatch in property path or value type (e.g., string vs. boolean) leads to unintended denial.
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 media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
Related glossary terms
Concepts from this question explained
These glossary pages explain the core terms tested in this SC-100 question in full detail.
Recommend security best practices and priorities — This question tests Recommend security best practices and priorities — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: The policy's 'then' block uses 'deny' but the condition logic evaluates the 'encryption' property incorrectly — Option C is correct because the most likely cause is that the policy's condition logic incorrectly evaluates the 'encryption' property. Azure Policy uses JSON-based condition expressions to check resource properties; if the condition does not match the actual property path (e.g., 'properties.encryption.enabled' vs. 'properties.encryption') or uses an incorrect operator, the deny effect will trigger even when encryption is specified. This is a common misconfiguration in custom policies.
What should I do if I get this SC-100 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Are there clue words in this question I should notice?
Yes — watch for: "most likely". Probability qualifier — the question wants the most probable cause or outcome, not a guaranteed one. Eliminate low-probability options.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Question Discussion
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