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SC-200 Practice Question: A security analyst receives an alert in Microsoft…
A security analyst receives an alert in Microsoft Defender for Cloud about a suspicious process on an Azure VM. The alert indicates a potential credential dumping tool. The analyst needs to see the full command line and parent process of the suspicious process. Which Defender for Cloud feature should the analyst use?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates confuse Live Response with other Defender for Cloud features like Fileless attack detection or Adaptive application controls, mistakenly thinking those features provide forensic process investigation capabilities when they are actually focused on detection or prevention, not post-breach analysis.
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
✓
Live Response
Live Response in Microsoft Defender for Cloud provides the analyst with the ability to remotely investigate a live Azure VM. It allows the analyst to run commands, collect forensic artifacts, and view detailed process information, including the full command line and parent process of the suspicious process, which is essential for analyzing a potential credential dumping tool.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Live Response
Why this is correct
Live Response provides a remote, interactive shell session to the VM, allowing an analyst to execute built-in commands or PowerShell scripts directly on the machine. Through this shell, you can enumerate running processes, retrieve their command-line arguments, identify parent-child process relationships, and terminate malicious processes. This hands-on capability is exactly what is needed to investigate the alert and determine whether the process is benign or malicious.
- ✗
Fileless attack detection
Why it's wrong here
Fileless attack detection is a detection mechanism that identifies threats which avoid writing payloads to disk, such as those executed from memory, registry, or scripts. While it can generate an alert when it suspects fileless behavior, it does not provide any interactive or command-line access to the VM. Therefore, even if it flags a process as suspicious, the analyst cannot use it to inspect process details like command lines or parent processes.
- ✗
Just-In-Time VM access
Why it's wrong here
Just-In-Time (JIT) VM access is a network-level access control feature that manages inbound RDP or SSH connections to a VM by granting timed, approved access from specific IP addresses. Its purpose is to reduce the attack surface and prevent persistent remote access, not to provide visibility into what is running inside the VM. It gives no ability to query the OS for process information, so it cannot help investigate the alert's process details.
- ✗
Adaptive application controls
Why it's wrong here
Adaptive application controls (AAC) is an allowlisting solution that enforces rules about which applications are permitted to run on a VM, based on settings and policies. It can help prevent unauthorized executables from launching, but it operates as a preventive control, not an investigative one. AAC does not expose the current process list or command-line data to an analyst, so it cannot be used to examine the process indicated in the alert.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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