SC-900 Practice Questions

Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager organizes improvement actions into control action subcategories that mirror core security control types used throughout Microsoft Learn’s SCI content: preventative, detective, and corrective. In the SC-900 security fundamentals guidance, Microsoft describes these control types as follows: “Preventive controls are intended to deter or stop an attack from occurring (for example, encryption and access controls). Detective controls are used to discover and detect attacks that are in progress or have occurred (for example, logging, auditing, and monitoring). Corrective controls are used to limit the damage caused by an incident and to return systems to normal operations (for example, configuration changes, incident response, and recovery activities).”

Applying those definitions to Compliance Manager actions: Encrypt data at rest is a preventative control because it deters exposure by protecting data before an event. Perform a system access audit is a detective action because auditing and reviewing access logs are used to discover and detect misuse or anomalies. Make configuration changes in response to a security incident is a corrective action because it remediates and restores the environment after detection, aligning with Compliance Manager’s corrective action guidance. These mappings reflect how Compliance Manager measures completion of improvement actions that reduce compliance risk through the right mix of preventative, detective, and corrective controls.

In Microsoft identity architecture, federation establishes trust between different identity providers to enable single sign-on (SSO) across organizational and platform boundaries. Microsoft Learn explains that federation uses standards such as SAML, WS-Federation, and OpenID Connect/OAuth 2.0 so a user can authenticate with their home identity provider and obtain tokens that are accepted by a relying party (the application or service). This trust relationship lets organizations share identities securely without copying passwords or synchronizing credentials, providing a seamless sign-in experience across multiple systems and clouds.

By contrast, Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) and a domain controller provide on-premises directory and authentication services primarily within a single Windows domain/forest using Kerberos/NTLM, not cross-provider SSO on their own. Microsoft Entra Privileged Identity Management (PIM) manages just-in-time, approval-based elevation for roles and does not deliver SSO capabilities. Therefore, the technology explicitly intended to provide SSO across multiple identity providers is federation.

Microsoft Entra Permissions Management is Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure entitlement management (CIEM) solution delivered in the Microsoft Entra admin center, not in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal. Microsoft guidance describes it as a CIEM service that provides “centralized visibility, right-sizing, and governance of permissions across clouds” and is accessed and administered from the Entra portal under Permissions Management. The Purview compliance portal is used for compliance solutions such as Compliance Manager, Information Protection, DLP, eDiscovery, and Insider Risk—not CIEM—so statement 1 is No.

Permissions Management supports multicloud environments. Microsoft documentation states that it “discovers, monitors, and manages permissions for identities and resources across Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud Platform (GCP).” It calculates a Permission Creep Index (PCI), surfaces excessive permissions, and recommends remediation across these clouds; therefore, using it to manage permissions in AWS is supported—statement 2 is Yes.

Regarding secure scores: Permissions Management focuses on entitlements (e.g., effective permissions, PCI, right-sizing actions). Microsoft Secure Score (and Identity Secure Score) are separate posture metrics exposed in Microsoft 365 Defender and Microsoft Entra ID, respectively. The Permissions Management blade does not present Microsoft Secure Score; instead, it shows CIEM-specific insights and PCI. Consequently, the claim that Secure Score can be reviewed from Permissions Management in the Entra admin center is No.