mediumMultiple Choice
SC-200 Practice Question: A company uses Microsoft Defender for Cloud and…
A company uses Microsoft Defender for Cloud and wants to automatically ensure that all Azure virtual machines have a specific security configuration baseline applied (e.g., default password policies). Which Defender for Cloud feature should they leverage to audit and enforce these configurations inside the VMs?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse Azure Policy (which applies to Azure resource properties) with Guest Configuration (which applies to settings inside the VM guest OS), leading them to incorrectly select Security policies or Adaptive application controls.
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
✓
Azure Policy Guest Configuration
Azure Policy Guest Configuration is the correct feature because it extends Azure Policy to audit and enforce configurations inside the operating system of Azure VMs, including security baseline settings like default password policies. Unlike host-level policies, Guest Configuration can evaluate and remediate settings within the guest OS, making it the appropriate tool for this requirement.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Security policies
Why it's wrong here
Security policies in Microsoft Defender for Cloud are collections of assessment rules and compliance standards (e.g., PCI DSS, CIS) applied at the subscription or management group level. They evaluate resources against benchmarks and produce recommendations, but they lack the ability to actively remediate or enforce in-guest settings like registry keys, service states, or OS hardening baselines. Thus, selecting security policies would not automate the enforcement of VM security baselines.
- ✓
Azure Policy Guest Configuration
Why this is correct
Guest Configuration is an Azure Policy extension that can audit and deploy configurations inside Azure VMs, including Arc-enabled servers, using PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC). It enforces baselines by remediating settings such as password policy, Windows Defender Firewall rules, and TLS versions through DeployIfNotExists and Modify effects. This aligns with the goal of automating security baseline enforcement. Therefore, it is the correct choice.
- ✗
Just-In-Time VM access
Why it's wrong here
Just-In-Time (JIT) VM access is a Defender for Cloud feature that controls network-level access to management ports (e.g., RDP, SSH) by opening rules in NSGs or Azure Firewall only when requested and for a limited time. It does not modify or validate the OS configuration inside the VM; it merely restricts who can establish inbound connections. Consequently, JIT cannot enforce security baselines or in-guest compliance settings.
- ✗
Adaptive application controls
Why it's wrong here
Adaptive application controls use machine learning to build an allowlist of known-safe applications and executables permitted to run on a VM. This provides application whitelisting that blocks unapproved or malicious binaries, but it does not configure OS-level settings like registry values, service configurations, or security baselines. Since it targets runtime behavior rather than the static hardening state, it is not relevant to automating baseline enforcement.
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
Courseiva writes every SC-200 question from scratch — 1,303 in total, each with an explanation and a wrong-answer breakdown. None are copied from real exams or dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This SC-200 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 SC-200 exam.