This SC-900 practice question tests your understanding of describe the capabilities of microsoft entra. Read the scenario carefully and evaluate each option against the stated constraints before committing to an answer. 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 user reports frequent password reset requests. You suspect password spray attacks. Which Microsoft Entra ID feature should you use to investigate?
Identity Protection risk detections
Identity Protection detects password spray and other risks.
Audit logs
Why wrong: Audit logs show events but not risk detections.
Conditional Access policies
Why wrong: Conditional Access enforces policies, does not detect attacks.
Multifactor authentication
Why wrong: MFA is a verification method, not an investigation tool.
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
Identity Protection risk detections
Identity Protection risk detections are the correct feature because they specifically analyze sign-in patterns and flag suspicious activities such as password spray attacks. A password spray attack involves an attacker trying a small number of common passwords against many accounts, and Identity Protection uses machine learning to detect this anomalous behavior and generate risk detections like 'Unfamiliar sign-in properties' or 'Malicious IP address'.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
Identity Protection risk detections
Why this is correct
Identity Protection detects password spray and other risks.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Audit logs
Why it's wrong here
Audit logs show events but not risk detections.
Conditional Access policies
Why it's wrong here
Conditional Access enforces policies, does not detect attacks.
Multifactor authentication
Why it's wrong here
MFA is a verification method, not an investigation tool.
Common exam traps
The trap here is that candidates confuse Audit logs (which show what happened) with Identity Protection risk detections (which analyze why it happened), leading them to pick Audit logs as the investigative tool for attack patterns.
Trap categories for this question
Command / output trap
Audit logs show events but not risk detections.
Detailed technical explanation
Identity Protection uses real-time and offline risk detection algorithms that analyze attributes such as IP reputation, sign-in velocity, and credential patterns to identify password spray attacks. Under the hood, it leverages Microsoft's threat intelligence and machine learning models that compare sign-in attempts against global telemetry, flagging events where a single password is attempted across multiple accounts within a short time window. In a real-world scenario, an admin would review the 'Risky sign-ins' report to see aggregated detections like 'Password spray' and then take action such as blocking the source IP or requiring password reset.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
A company's IT admin needs to give a contractor read-only access to production logs without sharing account credentials. Using role-based access control (RBAC) and temporary scoped permissions — not a permanent shared password — is the correct pattern. Questions like this test whether you can apply least-privilege access across cloud identity services.
What to study next
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FAQ
Describe the capabilities of Microsoft Entra — This question tests Describe the capabilities of Microsoft Entra — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: Identity Protection risk detections — Identity Protection risk detections are the correct feature because they specifically analyze sign-in patterns and flag suspicious activities such as password spray attacks. A password spray attack involves an attacker trying a small number of common passwords against many accounts, and Identity Protection uses machine learning to detect this anomalous behavior and generate risk detections like 'Unfamiliar sign-in properties' or 'Malicious IP address'.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 24, 2026
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.
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