SC-200 Manage a security operations environment Practice Question
You are a security operations analyst for a company that uses Microsoft Defender XDR. You need to ensure that when a high-severity alert is generated in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, an incident is automatically created in Microsoft Defender XDR and appears in the incident queue. What should you do?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse alert generation with incident creation, and assuming that custom detection rules or severity thresholds control incident creation in Defender XDR.
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
✓
Verify that the alert is not suppressed and that incident creation is enabled in the Microsoft Defender XDR settings.
Microsoft Defender XDR automatically creates incidents from alerts generated by its component services, including Defender for Endpoint, when incident creation is enabled and alerts are not suppressed. Checking these settings ensures that high-severity alerts result in incidents. The other options involve unnecessary customizations or misconfigured features that do not directly control incident creation in Defender XDR.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Enable the Microsoft Defender for Endpoint integration in Microsoft Defender XDR and set the alert severity threshold to High.
Why it's wrong here
The integration is enabled by default, and there is no severity threshold setting for incident creation in Defender XDR. Incidents are created based on correlation and suppression settings, not a severity threshold, so this option misrepresents the configuration.
- ✗
Create a custom detection rule in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint that triggers on high-severity alerts.
Why it's wrong here
Custom detection rules are used to generate alerts based on advanced hunting queries, not to create incidents from existing alerts. They do not control incident creation for alerts from Defender for Endpoint, so this does not achieve the goal.
- ✓
Verify that the alert is not suppressed and that incident creation is enabled in the Microsoft Defender XDR settings.
Why this is correct
Microsoft Defender XDR automatically correlates alerts into incidents when incident creation is enabled and alerts are not suppressed. Ensuring these settings are correct allows high-severity alerts from Defender for Endpoint to generate incidents, meeting the requirement.
- ✗
Configure a Microsoft Sentinel analytics rule to ingest high-severity alerts from Defender for Endpoint and create incidents.
Why it's wrong here
While Microsoft Sentinel can create incidents from ingested alerts, the requirement is for incidents in Microsoft Defender XDR, not Sentinel. Using Sentinel would introduce an additional step and does not directly ensure incident creation in Defender XDR.
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
One of 1,303 original SC-200 practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Microsoft exam blueprint
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.