SC-900 Practice Question: Describe the capabilities of Microsoft security solutions
A company uses Microsoft Defender for Cloud to assess the security posture of their Azure subscriptions. They want to improve their secure score. What should they do?
⚠ Common exam trap
SC-900 often tests the misconception that secure score improves through resource removal or budget changes, when it is strictly driven by implementing the security recommendations surfaced by Defender for Cloud.
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
✓
Implement the security recommendations
Microsoft Defender for Cloud's secure score quantifies an Azure subscription's security posture based on implemented recommendations. To improve the score, the organization must remediate the identified security recommendations — such as enabling MFA, applying patches, or restricting network access. Each implemented recommendation increases the score, reflecting a stronger security posture.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Implement the security recommendations
Why this is correct
Implementing the security recommendations provided by Microsoft Defender for Cloud directly addresses identified vulnerabilities and misconfigurations within your Azure environment. Each recommendation, when remediated, contributes points towards your secure score, reflecting an improved security posture by aligning resources with best practices and security controls. This is the primary mechanism for actively enhancing the secure score and reducing your attack surface.
- ✗
Remove all virtual machines from the subscription
Why it's wrong here
Removing all virtual machines from a subscription would indeed reduce the overall attack surface by eliminating potential targets. However, this action does not actively improve the secure score for the *remaining* resources or the subscription's security posture in the way that implementing security controls does. The secure score is designed to measure the effectiveness of security measures applied to *existing* assets, not to reward the absence of resources.
- ✗
Increase the Azure budget
Why it's wrong here
Increasing the Azure budget is a financial management action that allocates more funds for cloud services and operations. This action has no direct or indirect impact on the technical security posture of your resources or the calculation of the secure score within Microsoft Defender for Cloud. The secure score is determined by security assessments, compliance with recommendations, and the implementation of security controls, not financial allocations.
- ✗
Disable Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Why it's wrong here
Disabling Microsoft Defender for Cloud would immediately halt all security assessments, recommendations, and threat protection capabilities for your Azure environment. This action would prevent any further secure score calculations or improvements, as the very tool designed to identify and guide security enhancements would be rendered inoperative. Consequently, your ability to monitor and improve your security posture would be severely compromised.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Azure Policy Effects: Audit, Deny, Modify
Key term
Security posture
An organization's overall cybersecurity strength, including policies, controls, and readiness to defend against and respond to threats.
Key term
Organization
An Organization is a top-level container in Google Cloud that represents your company or entities and serves as the root node for all your cloud resources, policies, and access control.
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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-900 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-900 exam.