SC-200 Manage a security operations environment Practice Question
Your organization uses Microsoft Sentinel and Microsoft Defender XDR. A new security policy requires that all incidents involving 'Credential Access' tactics be automatically assigned to the Tier 1 SOC team and have a severity of 'High'. You need to configure this automation. What should you do?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse automation rules (incident-level) with automated investigation rules (Defender XDR) or think that analytics rules can directly assign incidents, when in fact automation rules are the correct post-creation mechanism for assignment and severity changes.
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
✓
Create an automation rule in Microsoft Sentinel with conditions for tactic 'Credential Access' and actions to assign to Tier 1 SOC and set severity to High.
Automation rules in Microsoft Sentinel allow you to define conditions based on incident properties, such as tactic, and then trigger actions like assigning the incident to a specific owner (Tier 1 SOC) and setting the severity. This directly meets the policy requirement without requiring external playbooks or modifying analytics rules.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Configure an automated investigation rule in Microsoft Defender XDR to assign incidents.
Why it's wrong here
Automated investigation rules in Microsoft Defender XDR trigger investigation and remediation actions on alerts; they cannot assign incidents to a Sentinel team or set severity. They suit automated triage and response, whereas incident ownership and severity changes require a Sentinel automation rule.
- ✗
Create a playbook in Microsoft Sentinel that runs on incident creation and assigns the incident to Tier 1 SOC.
Why it's wrong here
A playbook is a Logic Apps workflow triggered after incident creation; it can assign ownership but cannot set the incident's severity, and adds latency versus native automation. Playbooks suit complex multi-step orchestration, not simple assignment and severity changes.
- ✓
Create an automation rule in Microsoft Sentinel with conditions for tactic 'Credential Access' and actions to assign to Tier 1 SOC and set severity to High.
Why this is correct
Automation rules in Microsoft Sentinel natively evaluate incident properties such as tactics and can trigger actions including owner assignment and severity modification, satisfying the policy's requirement that Credential Access incidents be auto-assigned to Tier 1 SOC at High severity. Unlike playbooks, automation rules run directly on incident creation without requiring a Logic Apps workflow.
- ✗
Modify the analytics rule that generates the incidents to include the assignment and severity settings.
Why it's wrong here
Analytics rules set severity at creation but cannot assign incidents to a Microsoft Sentinel team, and editing every rule is impractical for a cross-tactic policy. Analytics rules suit defining detection logic and initial severity, not post-creation ownership routing.
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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.