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.
Your organization plans to use Microsoft Purview to protect sensitive data in Microsoft 365. The compliance team needs to detect when users share credit card numbers via email and automatically apply encryption. Which solution should you implement?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention (DLP)
Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention (DLP) is the correct solution because it is specifically designed to detect sensitive data types—such as credit card numbers—in email messages and automatically apply protective actions like encryption. DLP policies can inspect email content in transit via Exchange Online, match patterns against predefined sensitive info types (e.g., credit card number regex), and trigger actions such as 'Encrypt the message' using Azure Rights Management. This directly meets the requirement to detect sharing of credit card numbers and enforce encryption automatically.
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.
✗
Microsoft Purview Audit
Why it's wrong here
Audit records user activities but does not apply encryption.
✗
Microsoft Purview eDiscovery
Why it's wrong here
eDiscovery is for searching and exporting content for legal cases, not for protection.
✗
Microsoft Purview Information Protection
Why it's wrong here
Information Protection deals with sensitivity labels and classification, not automatic email encryption.
✓
Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention (DLP)
Why this is correct
DLP policies can detect sensitive information and automatically apply encryption via transport rules.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Microsoft often tests the distinction between Information Protection (labeling/classification) and Data Loss Prevention (content inspection and automated enforcement), leading candidates to pick Information Protection because they confuse 'protecting data' with 'detecting and acting on sensitive content.'
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Under the hood, DLP policies in Exchange Online use transport rules that evaluate message content against sensitive information types defined in the Microsoft 365 compliance center, which include regular expressions and checksum validation for credit card numbers (e.g., Luhn algorithm). When a match occurs, DLP can invoke an 'Encrypt the message' action that applies Azure Information Protection (AIP) encryption, wrapping the email in an encrypted rights-protected message. A real-world scenario where this matters is when a finance employee accidentally pastes a customer’s credit card number into an email body; DLP can automatically encrypt the email before it leaves the organization, preventing unauthorized access even if the email is forwarded.
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 cloud solutions architect for a retail company is evaluating services for a new workload. The correct answer here reflects best practice for the specific scenario described — not a general cloud recommendation. Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option. Cloud exam questions reward reading the constraint carefully: the same technology can be right or wrong depending on the use case.
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: Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention (DLP) — Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention (DLP) is the correct solution because it is specifically designed to detect sensitive data types—such as credit card numbers—in email messages and automatically apply protective actions like encryption. DLP policies can inspect email content in transit via Exchange Online, match patterns against predefined sensitive info types (e.g., credit card number regex), and trigger actions such as 'Encrypt the message' using Azure Rights Management. This directly meets the requirement to detect sharing of credit card numbers and enforce encryption automatically.
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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