The AZ-500 Microsoft Azure Security Engineer Associate certification is designed for security engineers who are responsible for security posture, implementing security controls, managing identity and access, and protecting data, applications, and networks in cloud and hybrid environments as part of an end-to-end infrastructure. Similar to AZ-305, it’s aimed at individuals with a strong understanding of Azure services but with a specific focus on security-related tasks.
The exam will measure your skills in the following areas.
- Manage identity and access
- Secure networking
- Secure compute, storage, and databases
- Manage security operations
If you are eager to learn more about the AZ-500 Microsoft Azure Security Engineer Associate exam, I recommend checking out the official exam skills outline. This study guide contains comprehensive review materials designed to help you pass the exam with confidence.
Study Materials
Prior to attempting the Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert exam, it is highly advised to go through these study materials. These resources are specifically designed to aid you in grasping the intricate concepts and services that will be addressed in the exam.
- Microsoft Learn – this website offers a variety of learning paths for different Microsoft certifications. For the AZ-500 Microsoft Azure Security Engineer Associate certification exam, you can focus on the following topics:
- Azure Documentation – the documents provide a comprehensive set of resources, including overviews, tutorials, examples, and how-to guides, which can help you understand various Azure services in depth.
- Azure Blog – to stay up-to-date on the latest technologies and offerings from Microsoft Azure, you can subscribe to their newsletter.
- Azure FAQs – the Azure documentation includes a comprehensive FAQ section that answers common questions about Azure services, use cases, and comparisons.
- Azure Free Account – the Azure portal offers a 12-month trial that gives you hands-on experience with Azure services. You’ll also get free credits to use for the first 30 days.
- Tutorials Dojo’s Azure Cheat Sheets – our cheat sheets make it easy to understand the information found in the Azure documentation. They are presented in a concise bullet-point format that highlights the essential concepts.
- Tutorials Dojo’s AZ-104 Microsoft Azure Administrator Practice Exams and Tutorials Dojo’s AZ-305 Microsoft Azure Solutions Architect Expert Practice Exams – our practice exams are consistently ranked among the best in the market. Each question comes with comprehensive explanations that will help you understand the crucial concepts you need to succeed in your Microsoft Azure certification exam on your first attempt.
- Azure Security Center Documentation – Essential for understanding threat protection, security posture management, and security alerts.
Azure Services to Focus On
The Azure documentation is your primary source of information when studying for the AZ-500 Microsoft Azure Security Engineer Associate certification exam. To understand the different scenarios in the exam, you should have a thorough understanding of the following services:
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- Familiarize yourself with securing users and groups, implementing multi-factor authentication (MFA) and passwordless authentication, managing external identities, setting up Conditional Access policies, registering apps, and managing service principals, understanding built-in roles vs custom roles.
- Learning about deleted object retention, utilizing application proxy, implementing managed identities, and exploring supported identity providers.
- Implementing Single Sign-On (SSO)
- differentiating between RBAC and Entra roles, and utilizing Microsoft Entra Privileged Identity Management.
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- Understand how to assign and organize Azure resources with management groups and utilize management groups to provide structured access management and policy applications across multiple Azure subscriptions.
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- Understand the setup and configuration of Network Security Groups (NSGs) and Application Security Groups (ASGs), Virtual Network peering, VPN gateway configurations for secure networking, distinguishing between service and private endpoints, and leveraging virtual network integration.
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- Familiarize yourself with securing VMs, including disk encryption methods, system updates, and secure network configurations.
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- Understand access controls, the significance of different storage tiers, and the implementation of data protection strategies to secure blob storage.
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- Familiarize yourself with managing secrets, keys, and certificates within Azure Key Vault, setting up access policies, understanding rotation policy, deleted objects retention, and soft-delete features.
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- Understand configuring and managing Azure Firewall rules, utilizing Azure Firewall Manager, and applying application and network rules for secure network traffic management.
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- Familiarize yourself with collecting, analyzing, and acting on telemetry data from Azure and on-premises environments to monitor security events.
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- Understand how to enhance your security posture, implement security controls, respond to security alerts and recommendations, know which cloud services and OS are supported, use secure score, create custom recommendations, manage policy assignments, and understand regulatory compliance within Defender for Cloud.
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- Familiarize yourself with configuring site-to-site VPNs, and point-to-site VPNs, and managing VPN settings for secure remote connectivity.
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- Understand ExpressRoute connections, peering options, and how to encrypt connectivity over ExpressRoute for private networking.
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- Familiarize yourself with options for storage accounts, such as configuring firewalls, securing access, implementing network controls for data protection, and enabling double encryption.
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- Secure app services by implementing authentication and authorization mechanisms and managing SSL/TLS bindings for secure communications.
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- Understand encryption options for Azure Managed Disks, managing disk access, and ensuring data security at rest.
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- Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
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- Secure AKS clusters by managing access controls and integrating with Azure security services for containerized applications.
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- Secure logic app workflows, securely process data and integrate securely with other Azure services.
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- Implement governance and compliance controls through Azure Policy, assessing compliance and managing policy definitions for organizational standards.
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- Use built-in roles, create custom roles, and manage access to Azure resources for secure and least-privilege access.
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- Secure Azure SQL Database by implementing Transparent Data Encryption (TDE), managing SQL authentication, utilizing auditing, and implementing dynamic masking.
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- Configure the Web Application Firewall (WAF), manage SSL/TLS offloading, and secure application traffic through Azure Application Gateway.
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- Set up protection plans, configure DDoS protection settings, and integrate with application and network security measures to safeguard against attacks.
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- Configure Azure Front Door as a global entry point for securing web applications, including setting up WAF and managing URL-based routing for high availability and security.
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- Secure access to Azure services and Azure-hosted customer-owned services through Azure Private Link, ensuring data transfer over Microsoft’s backbone network without crossing the public internet.
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- Classify, label, and protect documents and emails, and manage data protection policies to ensure sensitive information is handled securely.
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- Provide secure and seamless RDP and SSH access to virtual machines via Azure Bastion, minimizing public internet exposure.
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- Understand security considerations for using Azure Container Registry, including managing access with RBAC, implementing content trust, and securing container images.
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- Monitor and diagnose network issues with Azure Network Watcher, implementing network performance monitoring and securing network resources.
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- Implement organizational standards and compliance at scale with Azure Blueprints, ensuring cloud governance and secure adoption through templated environments.
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- Secure serverless applications in Azure Functions, including managing access rights, implementing authentication mechanisms, and securing function triggers and bindings.
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- Familiarize yourself with the security aspects of Azure SQL Managed Instance, including network isolation, secure database access, and implementing advanced security features.
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- Understand configuring and managing Azure Load Balancer for securing application traffic, ensuring high availability, and managing both public and internal load balancing strategies.
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Validate Your Knowledge
If you feel confident after going through the suggested materials above, it’s time to put your knowledge of different Azure concepts and services to the test. For top-notch practice exams, consider using the AZ-104 Microsoft Azure Administrator Practice Exams and AZ-305 Designing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions.
These practice exams cover the relevant topics and question types that you can expect from the real exam. Each question has a detailed explanation and reference links, so you can understand why the correct answer is the most suitable solution. After you take the exams, you’ll be able to see which areas you need to improve on. Combining it with our cheat sheets, we’re confident that you’ll be able to pass the exam and have a deeper understanding of Azure.
Sample Practice Test Questions:
Question 1
You have an Azure subscription and need to assign a role to a team member who must adhere to the principle of least privilege.
This team member’s task is to audit and report on Microsoft Entra ID, requiring view-only access to all settings and configurations without modifying, deleting, or managing permissions.
Which Microsoft Entra built-in role should you assign to fulfill these requirements?
1. Directory Reader
2. Security Reader
3. Global Reader
4. Global Administrator
Correct Answer: 3
Microsoft Entra ID is Microsoft’s cloud-based identity and access management service, which helps your employees sign in and access resources in:
– External resources, such as Microsoft Office 365, the Azure portal, and thousands of other SaaS applications.
– Internal resources, such as apps on your corporate network and intranet, along with any cloud apps developed by your own organization.
Microsoft Online business services, such as Office 365 or Microsoft Azure, require Azure AD for sign-in and to help with identity protection. If you subscribe to any Microsoft Online business service, you automatically get Azure AD with access to all the free features.
In Microsoft Entra ID, if another administrator or non-administrator needs to manage Microsoft Entra resources, you assign them a Microsoft Entra role that provides the permissions they need. For example, you can assign roles to allow adding or changing users, resetting user passwords, managing user licenses, or managing domain names.
The Global Reader role is specifically designed for comprehensive auditing, providing read-only access to all Microsoft Entra ID settings and configurations, including detailed configuration and setting information, without granting unnecessary modify or manage permissions.
Hence, the correct answer is: Global Reader.
Directory Reader is incorrect. The Directory Readers role offers limited visibility, primarily restricted to basic directory data. It does not include access to important auditing information like sign-in logs, audit logs, and detailed configurations of Microsoft Entra services.
Security Reader is incorrect. The Security Reader role grants read-only access to security information but does not provide the full range of access required.
Global Administrator is incorrect. The Global Administrator role has extensive manage permissions, which greatly exceeds the least privilege necessary for a role focused solely on auditing and reporting, and it does not adhere to the principle of least privilege.
References:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/identity/role-based-access-control/custom-overview
Azure Microsoft Entra ID Cheat Sheet:
Question 2
Your company is planning to expand its cloud infrastructure on Azure to support a multi-region deployment of its services.
To ensure compliance and maintain consistent configurations across all Azure resources, the company wants to automate the deployment of Azure resources.
The solution must also enforce organizational standards and security requirements across different subscriptions within the Azure environment.
What should you use?
- Azure Blueprints
- Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates
- Azure Policy
- Azure Automation
Correct Answer: 1
Azure Blueprints allows organizations to define a repeatable set of Azure resources that implements and adheres to an organization’s standards, patterns, and requirements.
Unlike Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates that focus on deploying individual resources and Azure Policy that enforces rules across resources in Azure, Azure Blueprints integrates both resource deployment and policy enforcement in a single package.
This makes it an ideal choice for automating the deployment of complex environments across multiple subscriptions while ensuring compliance with organizational standards, cost management, and security requirements. Blueprints can be applied to multiple subscriptions, making it easier to replicate environments for multi-region deployments or across various departments within an organization.
Hence, the correct answer is: Azure Blueprints.
Azure Policy is incorrect. Azure Policy helps enforce organizational standards and assess compliance at scale through policy definitions that enforce rules for Azure resources, ensuring that resources stay compliant with corporate standards and service-level agreements.
Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates is incorrect. ARM templates are a powerful tool for deploying and managing resources in Azure, allowing for the automation of resource deployment through Infrastructure as Code (IaC). However, while they support the deployment of complex cloud environments, ARM templates alone do not enforce compliance or organizational policies across multiple subscriptions.
Azure Automation is incorrect. Azure Automation provides a way to automate frequent, time-consuming, and error-prone cloud management tasks. This service is focused on automating operational tasks such as managing virtual machines, networks, and databases, but it does not specifically address the deployment of resources in a compliant and standardized manner across multiple subscriptions.
References:
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-au/services/blueprints/
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/governance/blueprints/overview
Azure Blueprints Cheat Sheet:
For more Azure practice exams questions with detailed explanations, check out the Tutorials Dojo Portal:
Final Remarks
Gaining hands-on experience is as crucial as understanding the theoretical aspects of Azure security. Ensure that you spend ample time in the Azure portal, experimenting with various security settings and features. This practical experience, combined with a solid theoretical understanding, will prepare you well for the AZ-500 exam. Remember to stay updated on any changes to Azure services, as Azure is continually evolving.
Good luck with your preparation, and here’s to your success on the AZ-500 Microsoft Azure Security Engineer Associate exam!
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Written by: Matt Hidalgo
