SC-200 Practice Question: Mitigate threats using Microsoft Defender for Cloud
This SC-200 practice question tests your understanding of mitigate threats using microsoft defender for cloud. 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 has enabled Microsoft Defender for Cloud on its Azure subscription. The security team wants to ensure that all existing virtual machines have a vulnerability assessment solution installed. Which Defender for Cloud feature can automatically deploy a vulnerability assessment agent to supported VMs?
These recommendations allow automatic deployment of vulnerability assessment agents to VMs as part of remediation steps.
B
Defender for Servers plan
Why wrong: Enabling the Defender for Servers plan enables advanced protections but does not automatically deploy vulnerability assessment agents; that is done through recommendations.
C
Security policies
Why wrong: Security policies define compliance standards and are not used for deploying agents.
D
Workload protections
Why wrong: Workload protections is a category of plans, not a feature for agent deployment.
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Vulnerability assessment recommendations
The Vulnerability Assessment (VA) recommendations in Microsoft Defender for Cloud can automatically deploy a vulnerability assessment agent (such as the Qualys or Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management agent) to supported Azure VMs. When a VM is found to be missing a VA solution, Defender for Cloud can enable the 'Auto-provision' setting for the VA recommendation, which triggers the agent installation without manual intervention. This directly meets the requirement to ensure all existing VMs have a vulnerability assessment solution installed.
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.
✓
Vulnerability assessment recommendations
Why this is correct
These recommendations allow automatic deployment of vulnerability assessment agents to VMs as part of remediation steps.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Defender for Servers plan
Why it's wrong here
Enabling the Defender for Servers plan enables advanced protections but does not automatically deploy vulnerability assessment agents; that is done through recommendations.
✗
Security policies
Why it's wrong here
Security policies define compliance standards and are not used for deploying agents.
✗
Workload protections
Why it's wrong here
Workload protections is a category of plans, not a feature for agent deployment.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse the 'Defender for Servers plan' (which enables the feature set) with the actual automated deployment mechanism, assuming the plan itself installs agents, when in fact the deployment is triggered by enabling the 'Auto-provision' setting on the specific vulnerability assessment recommendation.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Under the hood, the VA recommendation uses the 'Configure machines to receive a vulnerability assessment provider' policy, which when set to 'Auto-provision' triggers the deployment of the Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management extension or the Qualys agent via the Azure VM Agent. This process leverages the Azure Guest Agent to install the extension, and the agent then performs periodic scans, sending results to the Defender for Cloud backend for aggregation. A subtle behavior is that auto-provisioning only applies to VMs that are already onboarded to Defender for Cloud; newly created VMs must be explicitly covered by the same policy assignment.
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-200 question in full detail.
Mitigate threats using Microsoft Defender for Cloud — This question tests Mitigate threats using Microsoft Defender for Cloud — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Vulnerability assessment recommendations — The Vulnerability Assessment (VA) recommendations in Microsoft Defender for Cloud can automatically deploy a vulnerability assessment agent (such as the Qualys or Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management agent) to supported Azure VMs. When a VM is found to be missing a VA solution, Defender for Cloud can enable the 'Auto-provision' setting for the VA recommendation, which triggers the agent installation without manual intervention. This directly meets the requirement to ensure all existing VMs have a vulnerability assessment solution installed.
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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