SC-900 Practice Question: Describe the capabilities of Microsoft security solutions
Your organization uses Microsoft Sentinel. You need to create an automation rule that automatically closes a low-severity incident after 24 hours of inactivity. Which action should you include in the rule?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently confuse 'automation rule actions' with 'playbook capabilities', assuming a playbook is required to close an incident, when in fact a simple status change action suffices and is more efficient.
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
✓
Change status to Closed
Changing the status to 'Closed' is the direct action needed to automatically resolve a low-severity incident after a period of inactivity in Microsoft Sentinel. Automation rules can trigger status changes based on conditions like time elapsed, and closing the incident removes it from the active queue without manual intervention.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Run playbook
Why it's wrong here
Running a playbook in Microsoft Sentinel executes a predefined sequence of automated actions, which can range from enriching incident data to taking remediation steps. While a playbook could be designed to include a step that changes an incident's status, simply triggering a playbook does not inherently or directly close an incident. It merely initiates the execution of its configured workflow, which may or may not contain the specific action to update the incident's status to 'Closed'.
- ✗
Create incident
Why it's wrong here
The 'Create incident' action in Microsoft Sentinel is specifically designed to generate a new security incident based on alerts, events, or other triggers. Its sole purpose is to initiate a new investigative workflow, consolidating related security signals into a fresh incident for analysis. This action has no capability to modify the status or attributes of an *existing* incident, making it entirely unsuitable for closing an ongoing investigation.
- ✗
Add comment
Why it's wrong here
Adding a comment to a Microsoft Sentinel incident serves as a crucial communication and documentation tool for security analysts. It allows team members to record observations, share progress updates, or provide context within the incident's activity log. However, this action is purely informational and does not possess any functionality to alter the operational status of the incident, such as changing it from 'Active' to 'Closed'.
- ✓
Change status to Closed
Why this is correct
The 'Change status to Closed' action is the direct and appropriate method within Microsoft Sentinel to formally conclude an incident investigation. This action explicitly updates the incident's lifecycle state, marking it as resolved and no longer requiring active attention from analysts. It is commonly utilized within automation rules or playbooks to automatically close incidents that meet specific criteria, such as after a period of inactivity, successful remediation, or identification as a false positive.
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Microsoft Entra ID
Key term
Microsoft Sentinel
Microsoft Sentinel is a cloud-native security information and event management (SIEM) and security orchestration automation and response (SOAR) service that helps organizations detect, investigate, and respond to cyber threats across their entire digital estate.
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 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.