SC-200 Respond to security incidents Practice Question
You are an incident responder for a company using Microsoft 365 Defender. A critical incident is assigned to you. What is the first action you should take according to best practices?
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
✓
Triage the incident to determine the scope and severity.
The first and most critical step in incident response is to triage the incident. Triage involves assessing the incident's scope, severity, and potential impact to prioritize and guide subsequent actions. Without triage, you risk wasting resources on low-priority issues or taking inappropriate steps. Option A is correct because it enables informed decision-making. Option B (escalate) should come after triage if necessary. Option C (isolate devices) may be too hasty and could hinder investigation. Option D (collect memory dump) is premature before understanding the incident.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Triage the incident to determine the scope and severity.
Why this is correct
Triage establishes scope and severity before containment, eradication or recovery, so responders can prioritise the critical incident correctly. Skipping straight to remediation risks wasted effort and missed affected assets, whereas triage directly satisfies the best-practise first-action requirement in the stem.
- ✗
Escalate the incident to senior management.
Why it's wrong here
Escalation is a communication step taken after triage, not the first investigative action; the responder must first review and classify the incident in the Microsoft 365 Defender portal. Escalating suits governance or resourcing decisions once scope and severity are confirmed, not initial triage.
- ✗
Immediately isolate all affected devices.
Why it's wrong here
Isolation is a containment action taken after triage confirms active compromise; isolating immediately can destroy evidence and disrupt business before scope is understood. It is correct once analysis confirms a device is actively communicating with malicious infrastructure.
- ✗
Collect a full memory dump from the affected systems.
Why it's wrong here
Memory capture is a forensic preservation step performed after scoping, and Microsoft 365 Defender incidents are cloud-service based, so endpoint memory dumps rarely apply. It would be correct during host-level malware forensics where volatile evidence must be preserved before remediation.
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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.