SC-200 Mitigate threats using Microsoft Defender XDR Practice Question
This SC-200 practice question tests your understanding of mitigate threats using microsoft defender xdr. Read the scenario carefully and evaluate each option against the stated constraints before committing to an answer. 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 security analyst is investigating a phishing campaign targeting multiple users. The analyst has identified a malicious attachment with a known SHA256 hash. The analyst needs to find all email messages that were delivered to any user and contained this specific attachment. Which advanced hunting table should the analyst query in Microsoft 365 Defender to obtain the message IDs of emails containing the attachment?
Why wrong: Incorrect. EmailEvents provides metadata like sender, recipient, subject, and delivery status, but does not include attachment hashes. Use EmailAttachmentInfo to map hashes to network message IDs.
B
EmailAttachmentInfo
Correct. This table stores each attachment's details (filename, SHA256, size) and links them to the email's NetworkMessageId. Filtering on the SHA256 hash yields the relevant message IDs.
C
EmailPostDeliveryEvents
Why wrong: Incorrect. This table records actions taken after delivery, such as user clicks or admin moves, but does not store attachment hash information.
D
DeviceFileEvents
Why wrong: Incorrect. DeviceFileEvents logs file creation, modification, and deletion on endpoints, not email-level attachment data.
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
EmailAttachmentInfo
The EmailAttachmentInfo table in Microsoft 365 Defender advanced hunting contains metadata about attachments on email messages, including the SHA256 hash of each attachment. By querying this table with the known malicious SHA256 hash, the analyst can retrieve the NetworkMessageId values for all emails that contained that specific attachment, regardless of whether the email was delivered or blocked.
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.
✗
EmailEvents
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. EmailEvents provides metadata like sender, recipient, subject, and delivery status, but does not include attachment hashes. Use EmailAttachmentInfo to map hashes to network message IDs.
✓
EmailAttachmentInfo
Why this is correct
Correct. This table stores each attachment's details (filename, SHA256, size) and links them to the email's NetworkMessageId. Filtering on the SHA256 hash yields the relevant message IDs.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
EmailPostDeliveryEvents
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. This table records actions taken after delivery, such as user clicks or admin moves, but does not store attachment hash information.
✗
DeviceFileEvents
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. DeviceFileEvents logs file creation, modification, and deletion on endpoints, not email-level attachment data.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse EmailAttachmentInfo with EmailEvents, mistakenly thinking that EmailEvents contains attachment details, when in fact EmailEvents only provides delivery-level metadata and requires a join to access attachment-specific information.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
The EmailAttachmentInfo table stores one row per attachment per email, with columns like SHA256, FileName, FileType, and FileSize. To correlate with delivery status, the analyst would typically join EmailAttachmentInfo with EmailEvents on NetworkMessageId. In a real-world scenario, a single email with multiple attachments would produce multiple rows in EmailAttachmentInfo, each with its own SHA256 hash, allowing precise identification of which specific attachment was malicious.
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 healthcare organisation deploys an application with a public-facing web tier and a private database tier. The database subnet has no public IP and only accepts connections from the web tier's security group. Questions like this test whether you can design cloud network isolation using VNets/VPCs, subnets, and security group rules.
Related glossary terms
Concepts from this question explained
These glossary pages explain the core terms tested in this SC-200 question in full detail.
Mitigate threats using Microsoft Defender XDR — This question tests Mitigate threats using Microsoft Defender XDR — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: EmailAttachmentInfo — The EmailAttachmentInfo table in Microsoft 365 Defender advanced hunting contains metadata about attachments on email messages, including the SHA256 hash of each attachment. By querying this table with the known malicious SHA256 hash, the analyst can retrieve the NetworkMessageId values for all emails that contained that specific attachment, regardless of whether the email was delivered or blocked.
What should I do if I get this SC-200 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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