SC-100 Practice Question: Design solutions that align with security best practices and priorities
This SC-100 practice question tests your understanding of design solutions that align with security best practices and priorities. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. 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 Microsoft Defender for Cloud to assess the security posture of their Azure subscriptions. They want to ensure that all virtual machines have the Log Analytics agent installed and that missing system updates are remediated automatically. Which two recommendations should be enabled in a single policy initiative?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Enable the Microsoft Defender for Cloud 'System Updates' and 'Log Analytics agent' recommendations via a built-in initiative.
Option D is correct because Microsoft Defender for Cloud includes a built-in policy initiative (the 'ASC Default' initiative) that contains both the 'System Updates' and 'Log Analytics agent' recommendations. Enabling this single initiative automatically assigns both requirements to the selected scope, ensuring that missing system updates are remediated and the Log Analytics agent is installed on all virtual machines without needing custom policies or separate assignments.
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.
✗
Assign two separate Azure Policy initiatives, one for each requirement.
Why it's wrong here
Separate initiatives are less efficient than a single combined approach.
✗
Create a custom Azure Policy initiative that combines the two requirements.
Why it's wrong here
Custom initiatives require manual creation and maintenance.
✗
Use Azure Blueprints to assign the policies to all subscriptions.
Why it's wrong here
Azure Blueprints are deprecated in favor of deployment stacks.
✓
Enable the Microsoft Defender for Cloud 'System Updates' and 'Log Analytics agent' recommendations via a built-in initiative.
Why this is correct
Defender for Cloud provides built-in initiatives that cover both.
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 think they need to create custom initiatives or use separate assignments (Option A or B) because they assume the two requirements are unrelated, but Microsoft Defender for Cloud's built-in initiative already bundles them together, making Option D the simplest and most correct approach.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
The built-in initiative in Defender for Cloud, often referred to as the 'ASC Default' initiative, is actually an Azure Policy initiative that maps to the Microsoft cloud security benchmark. When you enable Defender for Cloud's 'System Updates' and 'Log Analytics agent' recommendations, you are effectively enabling the corresponding policy definitions within that initiative, which use 'deployIfNotExists' effects to automatically install the Log Analytics agent via VM extension and trigger update assessments via the Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/patchAssessmentMode property. A subtle behavior is that the Log Analytics agent recommendation requires the VM to have a valid Log Analytics workspace configured; if the workspace is missing, the policy will report non-compliance but cannot remediate until the workspace is specified.
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
An e-commerce site experiences heavy traffic on Black Friday and near-zero traffic during off-peak weeks. Rather than provisioning permanent large VMs, the team uses auto-scaling groups that add capacity automatically under load and reduce it overnight. Questions like this test whether you understand elasticity, availability zones, and cloud compute scaling patterns.
Related glossary terms
Concepts from this question explained
These glossary pages explain the core terms tested in this SC-100 question in full detail.
Design solutions that align with security best practices and priorities — This question tests Design solutions that align with 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: Enable the Microsoft Defender for Cloud 'System Updates' and 'Log Analytics agent' recommendations via a built-in initiative. — Option D is correct because Microsoft Defender for Cloud includes a built-in policy initiative (the 'ASC Default' initiative) that contains both the 'System Updates' and 'Log Analytics agent' recommendations. Enabling this single initiative automatically assigns both requirements to the selected scope, ensuring that missing system updates are remediated and the Log Analytics agent is installed on all virtual machines without needing custom policies or separate assignments.
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.
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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