SC-900 Practice Question: Describe the capabilities of Microsoft security solutions
A security administrator needs to identify users who are repeatedly failing to authenticate from unusual locations. Which Microsoft 365 security feature provides this visibility?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps (a CASB) with identity protection, assuming it handles sign-in anomalies, when in fact Entra ID Protection is the dedicated service for analyzing authentication risk signals like repeated failures from unusual locations.
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
✓
Microsoft Entra ID Protection
Microsoft Entra ID Protection (formerly Azure AD Identity Protection) detects and reports risky sign-in behaviors, including repeated authentication failures from unusual locations. It uses machine learning models to evaluate sign-in risk based on factors like unfamiliar IP addresses, anonymous IP addresses, and atypical travel patterns, providing security administrators with visibility into such anomalies.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management
Why it's wrong here
Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management focuses on identifying malicious or inadvertent insider activities that could lead to data exfiltration, intellectual property theft, or regulatory violations. It analyzes user behavior within Microsoft 365 services, such as file access, sharing, and email patterns, to detect potential data leakage risks. However, it does not directly monitor or protect against risky sign-in attempts or compromised credentials in an identity context.
- ✓
Microsoft Entra ID Protection
Why this is correct
Microsoft Entra ID Protection is specifically designed to detect, investigate, and remediate identity-based risks by leveraging machine learning and heuristics. It identifies suspicious activities like impossible travel, sign-ins from infected devices, anonymous IP addresses, or password spray attacks. This service automatically applies conditional access policies to block or challenge risky sign-ins, thereby protecting user accounts from compromise.
- ✗
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps
Why it's wrong here
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps (formerly Microsoft Cloud App Security) functions as a Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) to provide visibility into cloud applications and services. Its primary role is to discover shadow IT, protect sensitive information, detect anomalous behavior within cloud apps, and enforce compliance policies. While it can monitor user activity *within* cloud applications, its core purpose is not to identify or mitigate risky sign-in attempts to the identity provider itself.
- ✗
Microsoft Sentinel
Why it's wrong here
Microsoft Sentinel is a scalable, cloud-native Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) solution. It ingests security data from various sources, including identity providers, endpoints, and applications, to detect threats, investigate alerts, and respond to incidents across an enterprise. While Sentinel can *ingest* risky sign-in data from Entra ID Protection for broader correlation and analysis, it is not the native service that *identifies* and *protects* against these identity risks in real-time.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Core Security Concepts
Key term
Security
Security in IT is the practice of protecting systems, networks, and data from unauthorized access, damage, or theft.
Key term
Identity
Identity is the unique set of attributes that defines a user, device, or service in a computer system, determining what they can access and do.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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.