Microsoft Defender for Cloud provides two essential features for maintaining Azure security posture: Secure Score and Inventory.
Secure Score is a measurement tool that quantifies your organization's security posture on a scale from 0% to 100%. This metric helps security teams understand their cur…Microsoft Defender for Cloud provides two essential features for maintaining Azure security posture: Secure Score and Inventory.
Secure Score is a measurement tool that quantifies your organization's security posture on a scale from 0% to 100%. This metric helps security teams understand their current security state and identify areas requiring attention. The score is calculated based on security recommendations across your Azure resources, with each recommendation carrying a specific weight based on its potential security impact.
When you remediate security recommendations, your Secure Score increases. Recommendations are grouped into security controls such as 'Enable MFA', 'Secure management ports', and 'Apply system updates'. Each control represents a logical grouping of related security recommendations, and completing all recommendations within a control awards the maximum points for that control.
The Secure Score dashboard displays your overall score, score per subscription, and trends over time. This visibility enables security engineers to prioritize remediation efforts effectively and demonstrate security improvements to stakeholders.
The Inventory feature provides a comprehensive view of all resources connected to Defender for Cloud across your Azure subscriptions, AWS accounts, and GCP projects. It acts as a centralized asset management tool that displays resource health status, security recommendations, and installed agents.
Through the Inventory page, you can filter resources by resource type, subscription, environment, and security state. Each resource entry shows associated recommendations, vulnerability findings, and the number of unhealthy resources requiring attention.
Security engineers use Inventory to identify unprotected resources, discover resources missing required agents or extensions, and export resource data for compliance reporting. The feature integrates with Azure Resource Graph, enabling powerful queries across your entire cloud estate.
Together, Secure Score and Inventory provide visibility and actionable insights that help organizations strengthen their cloud security posture systematically.
Defender for Cloud Secure Score and Inventory
Why is Defender for Cloud Secure Score and Inventory Important?
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Secure Score and Inventory are critical components for maintaining and improving your organization's security posture in Azure. The Secure Score provides a quantifiable measurement of your security health, while the Inventory feature gives you complete visibility into all your cloud resources. For the AZ-500 exam, understanding these features is essential as they form the foundation of cloud security management.
What is Secure Score?
Secure Score is a percentage-based metric that represents your organization's security posture. It aggregates security findings across your Azure subscriptions and provides actionable recommendations to improve your security stance. The score ranges from 0% to 100%, with higher scores indicating better security configurations.
Key Components of Secure Score: - Current Score: Your present security rating - Maximum Score: The highest achievable score based on your resources - Security Controls: Grouped recommendations that address specific security areas - Recommendations: Specific actions to remediate security issues
What is Asset Inventory?
Asset Inventory provides a comprehensive view of all resources connected to Defender for Cloud. It allows security teams to identify unprotected resources, understand resource health, and filter assets based on security status, resource type, or subscription.
Inventory Features: - Resource health status - Coverage status (monitored vs. unmonitored) - Filtering and search capabilities - Export functionality for reporting
How Secure Score Works
1. Defender for Cloud continuously assesses your resources against security best practices 2. Each recommendation is assigned points based on severity and impact 3. Completing recommendations increases your score 4. Controls are marked as complete when all recommendations within them are resolved 5. Some recommendations are marked as Preview and do not affect your score
How Asset Inventory Works
1. Resources from connected subscriptions are automatically discovered 2. Each resource is evaluated for Defender for Cloud coverage 3. Security recommendations are linked to specific resources 4. Administrators can query and filter the inventory using Azure Resource Graph
Exam Tips: Answering Questions on Defender for Cloud Secure Score and Inventory
Tip 1: Remember that Secure Score only includes recommendations that are not in Preview status. Questions may test whether you understand which recommendations count toward the score.
Tip 2: Know that exemptions can be applied to recommendations. Exempted recommendations show as Not Applicable and do not negatively impact the Secure Score.
Tip 3: Understand the difference between Healthy, Unhealthy, and Not Applicable resource states in the inventory.
Tip 4: Be aware that Secure Score is calculated per subscription, and you can view an aggregate score across multiple subscriptions in a management group.
Tip 5: Questions may ask about improving Secure Score. Focus on implementing recommendations with the highest point values first for maximum impact.
Tip 6: Remember that Asset Inventory uses Azure Resource Graph for querying. Be familiar with how to export inventory data and create custom queries.
Tip 7: Understand that enabling enhanced security features (Defender plans) will generate additional recommendations and potentially affect your Secure Score.
Tip 8: Know that recommendations are grouped into security controls such as Enable MFA, Secure Management Ports, and Apply System Updates.
Common Exam Scenarios
- Identifying which action will most improve Secure Score - Understanding how to view resources that lack Defender for Cloud coverage - Knowing how to exempt resources from specific recommendations - Recognizing the relationship between recommendations, controls, and overall score