SC-900 Practice Question: Describe the concepts of security, compliance, and identity
This SC-900 practice question tests your understanding of describe the concepts of security, compliance, and identity. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. 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 healthcare organization stores sensitive patient records in a cloud database. The database is encrypted at rest using AES-256. If an attacker gains access to the physical storage media, they cannot read the data. Which security concept does this encryption primarily provide?
Correct: Encryption protects the data from unauthorized disclosure, which is the definition of confidentiality.
B
Integrity
Why wrong: Incorrect: Integrity ensures data is not tampered with or altered, which is typically verified through hashing or digital signatures, not encryption alone.
C
Availability
Why wrong: Incorrect: Availability ensures that systems and data are accessible when needed, which encryption does not directly address.
D
Authorization
Why wrong: Incorrect: Authorization is the process of granting or denying access rights to users, not a direct outcome of encryption.
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Confidentiality
Encryption at rest using AES-256 ensures that data stored on physical media is unreadable without the decryption key. If an attacker gains physical access to the storage media, the ciphertext cannot be deciphered, directly protecting the secrecy of the data. This aligns with the security goal of confidentiality, which prevents unauthorized disclosure of information.
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.
✓
Confidentiality
Why this is correct
Correct: Encryption protects the data from unauthorized disclosure, which is the definition of confidentiality.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Integrity
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect: Integrity ensures data is not tampered with or altered, which is typically verified through hashing or digital signatures, not encryption alone.
✗
Availability
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect: Availability ensures that systems and data are accessible when needed, which encryption does not directly address.
✗
Authorization
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect: Authorization is the process of granting or denying access rights to users, not a direct outcome of encryption.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates confuse encryption at rest with integrity controls, mistakenly thinking encryption prevents modification, when in fact encryption only ensures confidentiality and does not provide tamper detection.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
AES-256 is a symmetric block cipher that encrypts data in 128-bit blocks using a 256-bit key, making brute-force attacks computationally infeasible. In cloud databases, encryption at rest is typically implemented at the storage layer (e.g., Azure Storage Service Encryption or AWS EBS encryption), where the key is managed by the cloud provider or customer-managed keys via a key vault. A subtle behavior is that encryption at rest does not protect data while it is being queried or transmitted; it only protects data when it is idle on disk.
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
A media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
Related glossary terms
Concepts from this question explained
These glossary pages explain the core terms tested in this SC-900 question in full detail.
Describe the concepts of security, compliance, and identity — This question tests Describe the concepts of security, compliance, and identity — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Confidentiality — Encryption at rest using AES-256 ensures that data stored on physical media is unreadable without the decryption key. If an attacker gains physical access to the storage media, the ciphertext cannot be deciphered, directly protecting the secrecy of the data. This aligns with the security goal of confidentiality, which prevents unauthorized disclosure of information.
What should I do if I get this SC-900 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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