The Microsoft Security Operations Analyst certification exam SC-200 focuses on your ability to reduce organizational risk by quickly remediating active attacks, advising on improvements to threat protection practices, and referring violations of organizational policies to the relevant personnel. One of the critical segments of this exam is “Review and remediate security recommendations”, which forms 30-35% of the total exam. This section primarily revolves around the identification, evaluation, tracking, and rectification of security threats using Microsoft’s security solutions.
Section Overview:
When focusing on reviewing and remediating security recommendations, analysts should prioritize their tasks according to the security risks and threats. These tasks can range from analyzing indicators of compromise, to reviewing and managing security alerts, and identifying vulnerable resources.
1. Security Alerts Management:
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint provides security alerts that summarize threats and questionable activities identified on your network, such as malware infections and suspicious activities. The alert level characterizes the risk level of each alert, from low risk to high risk.
A common task while dealing with security alerts would be triaging an alert. To triage an alert, you would:
- Analyze the alert: This would involve examining the alert’s information in the Microsoft 365 Defender portal or via APIs.
- Investigate the alert: This requires looking into the alert’s incident graph and timeline, alert pages, and device timeline.
- Remediate the alert: This may require isolation actions, initiating investigations, or closing alerts.
2. Identifying Vulnerable Resources:
Identifying and assessing vulnerable resources is critical in mitigating possible threats before they become major incidents. Tools, like Azure Security Center, can be used by analysts to identify such resources. Azure Security Center ranks each security recommendation based on the potential effect on your environment’s security.
Azure Security Center offers secure score – a numeric value that indicates your overall security situation (the higher the score, the lesser the exposure to potential security vulnerabilities). The details of your security score can be found in the Secure Score dashboard in Azure Security Center.
3. Guided Investigation:
Microsoft Azure Sentinel provides the power to investigate and remediate security threats by using the Kusto Query Language (KQL). By mastering KQL, you can create custom dashboards, custom alerts, and machine learning functions to detect anomalies in your data.
An example of a basic KQL query to find login attempts from suspicious IPs might look like:
SigninLogs
| where LocationDetails.state == "Suspicious"
| summarize count() by IPAddress, UserPrincipalName
This KQL query will return a list of IP addresses and user principal names where suspicious login attempts were recorded.
4. Remediation Actions:
After reviewing and understanding the security recommendations, one needs to act on them to minimize the risk, ensuring optimal security compliance. Built-in remediation in Azure Security Center helps you to quickly and effectively remediate security vulnerabilities.
5. Monitoring Remediation with Compliance Score:
You can use the Compliance Score in Microsoft 365 to manage your organization’s configuration assessment for different Microsoft compliance standards and regulations. This scoring model helps you to understand your compliance position by assessing your Microsoft 365 environment configurations.
In conclusion, the “Review and remediate security recommendations” area focuses on threat identification, analyzing security alerts, identifying vulnerabilities, and taking remediation actions. Microsoft provides a range of tools to facilitate these tasks, such as Azure Security Center, Azure Sentinel and Microsoft 365 Defender. By understanding how to use these tools effectively, you will be well-prepared for this section of the SC-200 exam.
Practice Test
True or False: It is unnecessary to continuously review and remediate security recommendations for all your resources.
- True
- False
Answer: False.
Explanation: Continual review and remediation of security recommendations is critical to maintain a secure ecosystem and respond to ever-evolving threats.
Which of the following are essential steps in the review and remediation of security recommendations?
- A. Identifying threats
- B. Prioritizing recommendations
- C. Assigning tasks to responsible team members
- D. All of the above
Answer: D. All of the above
Explanation: A comprehensive approach to security review and remediation involves identifying threats, prioritizing recommendations based on threat severity, and assigning tasks to team members to ensure efficient and effective remediation.
True or False: The remediation of a security recommendation is a one-time process.
- True
- False
Answer: False.
Explanation: Security remedies require ongoing efforts to maintain a threat-free environment as new vulnerabilities can be identified at any time.
What is the purpose of categorizing security recommendations?
- A. To identify which recommendations to ignore
- B. To prioritize remediation efforts
- C. To find the least important recommendations
- D. None of the above
Answer: B. To prioritize remediation efforts
Explanation: By categorizing security recommendations, organizations can determine the most critical issues and prioritize their remediation efforts accordingly.
True or False: Microsoft SC-200 expects Security Operations Analysts to be familiar with cloud security and threat protection.
- True
- False
Answer: True.
Explanation: Microsoft SC-200 certification requires comprehensive knowledge of Microsoft’s security, compliance, and identity solutions, which include cloud security and threat protection.
What is the primary benefit of regularly reviewing security recommendations?
- A. Reducing system downtime
- B. Reduce IT staff workload
- C. Maintaining a secure and compliant system
- D. All of the above
Answer: C. Maintaining a secure and compliant system
Explanation: Regular review of security recommendations ensures that your organization’s infrastructure remains secure and compliant with relevant regulations.
Which of the following is not part of the security recommendation review process?
- A. Identifying the resources
- B. Prioritizing and assigning tasks
- C. Ignoring low-priority recommendations
- D. Regular follow up and status checks
Answer: C. Ignoring low-priority recommendations
Explanation: No security recommendations should be ignored completely. Lower-priority items can still be potential vulnerabilities.
Is it important to automate remediation tasks wherever feasible?
- Yes
- No
Answer: Yes.
Explanation: Automation can help to streamline and expedite the remediation process, allowing for faster response times and reducing the potential for human error.
True or False: One-off, intensive review and remediation is more effective than a continuous approach.
- True
- False
Answer: False.
Explanation: Threats are continually evolving, and therefore a repeated and ongoing review and remediation process is essential to maintain effective cybersecurity.
Can a patch management system be helpful in the remediation of security recommendations?
- Yes
- No
Answer: Yes.
Explanation: A patch management system can help schedule, manage, implement and track patches that address vulnerabilities, directly assisting in the remediation process.
True or False: Security Operations Analysts need only concern themselves with external threats.
- True
- False
Answer: False.
Explanation: Security Operations Analysts must monitor both external and internal threats, as internal threats such as data breaches or misuse can also pose serious risks.
What is the significance of a risk score in security recommendation?
- A. A risk score influences the initial assessment of threat
- B. A risk score is directly proportional to threat level
- C. A risk score indicates the relative impact of a potential vulnerability
- D. None of the above
Answer: C. A risk score indicates the relative impact of a potential vulnerability.
Explanation: A risk score assists in prioritizing remediation tasks, with a higher risk score indicating a greater level of threat severity.
Can the remediation process lead to the discovery of other potential security improvements?
- Yes
- No
Answer: Yes.
Explanation: During the remediation process, other potential improvements or areas of concern may be discovered, allowing for further optimization of a secure environment.
True or False: Microsoft SC-200 certified analysts should be adept at using Microsoft Azure Sentinel.
- True
- False
Answer: True.
Explanation: Azure Sentinel is a key part of Microsoft’s security, compliance, and identity solutions, and proficiency with this tool is expected for SC-200 candidates.
Can a Security Operations Analyst delegate remediation tasks to other team members?
- Yes
- No
Answer: Yes.
Explanation: A part of managing the remediation process may involve delegating tasks to other team members, assigning responsibilities based on expertise or priority level.
Interview Questions
What is the purpose of reviewing and remediating security recommendations in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint?
The purpose is to highlight potential weaknesses in your security posture, providing an ordered list of recommendations to improve it, and guide the security admin through the necessary remediation steps.
What role does Microsoft Secure Score play in reviewing security recommendations?
Microsoft Secure Score is a measurement of an organization’s security posture, with a higher number indicating more improvement actions taken. It contains security recommendations to aid organizations in enhancing their security posture.
What are the steps to review security recommendations in Microsoft?
The steps to review security recommendations are: Go to the navigation menu > Threat & Vulnerability Management > Recommendations. You can analyze the list, select a specific recommendation for more details, and then take action depending on your organization’s needs.
How does the “Discovered Software” page help to review and remediate security recommendations?
The “Discovered Software” page gives information about applications installed across your organization. This includes application vulnerabilities, which is valuable for reviewing security recommendations and making vital decisions about application updates, patches, or removal.
How does the ‘Exposure Score’ contribute to remediate security recommendations?
The ‘Exposure Score’ helps to prioritize remediation. It gives a benchmark of potential risk of vulnerabilities and represents how much you can decrease your exposure by remediating the recommendations.
What is the function of Automated Investigation and Response (AIR) in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint?
AIR provides automation of certain security tasks and reduces the volume of alerts in minutes at scale. It lets security operations teams focus on complex threats or other tasks that require human intervention.
How can an organization reduce the risk score in Microsoft Secure Score?
An organization can reduce the risk score by following the security recommendations offered by Microsoft Secure Score. These recommendations may involve changing configurations, options, introducing new security controls, or using different security features.
What is the role of threat analytics in reviewing and remediating security recommendations?
Threat analytics provide detailed threat intelligence for a particular threat or family of threats. It allows organizations to understand the risk associated and gives expert guidance to stop the progression of the threat and remediate its impact.
How can you configure automatic response actions in Microsoft 365 Defender?
Automatic response actions can be set up from the Microsoft 365 Defender portal. You can create an auto response by going to the settings page and selected appropriate response actions for different alert categories.
What role does the ‘Remediation Activity Log’ play in the remediation process?
The ‘Remediation Activity Log’ is a record of remediation activities. This includes status, start time, end time, machine impacted, and actions taken. It provides transparency on actions taken and their results, aiding future analysis and audits.
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