SC-900 Practice Questions

Microsoft’s Zero Trust guidance in the Security, Compliance, and Identity (SCI) materials frames three core principles: “Verify explicitly,” “Use least-privilege access,” and “Assume breach.” The guidance explains that identity is the new control plane in cloud-based environments: identity becomes the primary security boundary, with access decisions evaluated continuously using signals such as user identity, device health, location, and risk. In Zero Trust, organizations must “verify explicitly”—that is, require strong authentication and explicit authorization for every access request, not just initial logon, and base decisions on the permissions and context presented. The model also directs organizations to “assume breach”, operating with the expectation that an attacker may already be inside the environment and therefore applying containment practices such as micro-segmentation, telemetry, and rapid detection and response. Conversely, the traditional notion of defining the perimeter by physical locations or network boundaries is explicitly rejected; the documentation emphasizes that network location is no longer a reliable trust signal and should not be treated as the primary boundary. Therefore, the statements that align with Microsoft’s Zero Trust principles are: Use identity as the primary security boundary (B), Always verify user permissions explicitly (C), and Always assume the user/system can be breached (D).

Microsoft’s identity platform (Microsoft Entra ID, formerly Azure AD) supports built-in and custom directory roles. The official guidance states that you can “create your own custom roles to grant permissions for management of Microsoft Entra resources,” and those roles consist of specific role permissions that you select to tailor least-privilege administration. The documentation also lists Global administrator (formerly Company Administrator) as a built-in role that “has access to all administrative features” and can delegate role assignments, reset passwords for all users, and manage identity settings across the tenant. Regarding assignments, Microsoft is explicit that role assignment is many-to-many: administrators can “assign one or more roles to a user,” and the user’s effective permissions are the union of the privileges from all assigned roles. Consequently, (1) creating custom roles is supported (Yes), (2) Global administrator is indeed a defined Azure AD/Microsoft Entra role (Yes), and (3) a user being limited to only one role is incorrect (No) because multiple role assignments to the same user are permitted and commonly used to implement least privilege and separation of duties.

Box 1: Yes

Azure AD supports custom roles.

Box 2: Yes

Global Administrator has access to all administrative features in Azure Active Directory. Box 3: No

authorization

In the context of Microsoft identity and access management, when users attempt to access an application or a service, authorization is what controls their level of access. This concept is clearly defined in Microsoft’s Security, Compliance, and Identity (SCI) learning paths, particularly in SC-900 and SC-300 certifications.

From Microsoft SCI training materials:

“Authentication is the process of verifying the identity of a user, while authorization is the process of determining what resources a user can access and what actions they are permitted to perform.”

In more detail:

Authentication confirms who you are (e.g., verifying credentials through Azure AD, MFA).

Authorization decides what you can do (e.g., access to files, roles, permissions in an app or service).

SCI documentation explains:

“Once authentication is successful, authorization policies are applied to determine whether the authenticated user is allowed to access the requested resource and at what level.”

This principle is implemented using role-based access control (RBAC) in Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365 environments. For example, even if a user successfully logs into the Microsoft 365 portal (authentication), their ability to manage Exchange Online settings or view compliance data depends on their assigned roles (authorization).

In Microsoft Sentinel, Logic Apps are used as playbooks for automation and orchestration (SOAR)—to take actions after alerts/incidents occur (notify, enrich, remediate). They are not the component that detects or identifies anomalies; detections come from analytics rules, UEBA (user and entity behavior analytics), Fusion (ML-powered correlation), and anomaly rules. Workbooks are interactive dashboards and visualizations for monitoring and reporting; they don’t correlate alerts. Correlation of alerts into incidents is handled by analytics rules (including alert grouping and Fusion) within Sentinel’s detection pipeline. Finally, Sentinel’s Hunting experience provides KQL-based queries and templates that are mapped to the MITRE ATT&CK tactics/techniques, enabling analysts to explore threats in a framework-aligned way. Thus, automation via Logic Apps ≠ anomaly detection; Workbooks ≠ incident correlation; Hunting tooling does align to MITRE ATT&CK.

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Microsoft Entra ID Protection evaluates risk during authentication, not only after the user is authenticated. The service provides “real-time” assessment as part of the sign-in flow and also processes “offline” detections, enabling Conditional Access to act before a session is granted. In Microsoft’s terminology, “sign-in risk represents the probability that a given authentication request isn’t authorized by the identity owner,” while “user risk represents the probability that a given identity or account is compromised.” These risks are surfaced as risk detections and can be used to trigger MFA, block access, or require secure password reset. Each detection and calculated risk is classified by Microsoft Entra ID Protection with “Low, Medium, or High” levels so administrators can triage and automate policy responses appropriately. Because detections are calculated in real time as part of the sign-in evaluation (and also through subsequent analysis), it is incorrect to say they are generated once the user is authenticated. The accurate view is that Identity Protection continuously analyzes telemetry and produces detections and risk levels that may be acted upon before, during, and after sign-in, with user risk expressing the likelihood that the identity itself is compromised and sign-in risk expressing the likelihood that a particular authentication attempt is not legitimate.

Microsoft states that Security defaults are baseline protections in Azure Active Directory (now Microsoft Entra ID) that “make it easier to help protect your organization from identity-related attacks.” One of the core behaviors is that security defaults “require all users to register for Azure AD Multi-Factor Authentication,” and enforce “multi-factor authentication for all users,” with special emphasis that “administrators are required to do multi-factor authentication.” Security defaults also “block legacy authentication” and add protections for privileged operations, but the universal control that applies to every user is MF

A.  

Microsoft positions Compliance Manager as a capability available inside the Microsoft 365 Compliance Center (now Microsoft Purview compliance portal). In Microsoft’s SCI learning content, Compliance Manager is described as the centralized workspace in the compliance portal that “helps you manage your organization’s compliance requirements,” providing a compliance score, pre-built and custom assessments, and improvement actions you track and assign. The documentation explains that admins “use the Microsoft 365 Compliance Center to access Compliance Manager,” where they can review the score, map controls to regulations and standards, and manage evidence and testing of controls. It also clarifies that Compliance Manager is surfaced directly in the compliance portal navigation, enabling authorized roles (such as Compliance Administrator, Global Administrator, or Compliance Data Administrator) to open the Compliance Manager blade to create or view assessments, assign actions, and review detailed guidance. By contrast, the Microsoft 365 admin center focuses on tenant, billing, and user management; the Microsoft 365 Defender portal focuses on security operations and threat protection; and the Microsoft Support portal is for service requests. Therefore, the direct and intended entry point for Compliance Manager is the Microsoft 365 Compliance Center.

Biometrics templates are stored locally on a device. Reference:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/identity-protection/hello-for-business/hello-overview