The exam description for MS-101 was updated recently to include Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps naming. without any other changes, While there isn’t much to discuss in terms of exam changes, it is worth discussing how this security focused exams compares to some of the more recent additions in the security exam family
The first thing to note here is that this exam is a mobility and security exam, so it’s going to be include more detailed questions on Intune/MEM and Windows that the new exams don’t focus on. However, once you move past this difference, there are many topics that overlap with the SC-x00 series exams, but that doesn’t mean that preparing for this exam will completely prepare you for those exams. If you have passed MS-100 and MS-101 you are going to be in pretty good shape to prepare for the the SC-300 identity exam. If governance and compliance are what you are more passionate about, it would make sense to look at SC-400 as your next exam, as the base knowledge in this exam puts you in a good starting position as far as knowledge is concerned.
Some of those exams do have an Azure component, or in the case of the SC-200 Security Operations exam have a very heavy Azure focus due to Microsoft Defender for Cloud and Microsoft Sentinel making up a large portion of the exam. There is similar overlap with this exam and MS-500, so it could be a good exam to take after this one if you were planning out what’s next.
Implement Modern Device Services (40-45%)
Plan device management
- plan device monitoring
- plan Microsoft Endpoint Manager implementation and integration with Azure AD
- plan co-management between Endpoint Configuration Manager and Intune
- plan for configuration profiles
Manage device compliance
- plan for device compliance
- plan for attack surface reduction
- configure security baselines
- configure device compliance policy
- plan and configure conditional access policies
Plan for apps
- create and configure Microsoft Store for Business
- plan app deployment
- plan for mobile application management (MAM)
Plan Windows 10 deployment
- plan for Windows as a Service (WaaS)
- plan for managing Windows quality and feature updates
- plan Windows 10 Enterprise deployment methods
- analyze upgrade readiness for Windows 10 by using services such as Desktop Analytics
- evaluate and deploy additional Windows 10 Enterprise security features
Enroll devices
- plan for device join to Azure Active Directory (Azure AD)
- plan for manual and automated device enrollment
- enable device enrollment
Implement Microsoft 365 Security and Threat Management (20-25%)
Manage security reports and alerts
- evaluate and manage Microsoft Office 365 tenant security by using Secure Score
- manage incident investigation
- review and manage Microsoft 365 security alerts
Plan and implement threat protection with Microsoft 365 Defender
- plan Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
- design Microsoft Defender for Office 365 policies
- implement Microsoft Defender for Identity
Plan Microsoft Cloud App Security
- plan information protection by using Cloud App Security
- plan policies to manage access to cloud apps
- plan for application connectors
- configure Cloud App Security policies
- review and respond to Cloud App Security alerts
- monitor for unauthorized cloud applications
Manage Microsoft 365 Governance and Compliance (35-40%)
Plan for compliance requirements
- plan compliance solutions
- assess compliance
- plan for and implement privileged access management
- plan for legislative and regional or industry requirements and drive implementation
Manage information governance
- plan data classification
- plan for classification labeling
- plan for restoring deleted content
- implement records management
- design data retention labels and policies in Microsoft 365
Implement Information protection
- plan an information protection solution
- plan and implement sensitivity labels and policies
- monitor label alerts and analytics
- deploy Azure Information Protection unified labels clients
- configure Information Rights Management (IRM) for workloads
- plan for Windows information Protection (WIP) implementation
Plan and implement data loss prevention (DLP)
- plan for DLP
- configure DLP policies
- monitor DLP
Manage search and investigation
- plan for auditing
- plan for eDiscovery
- implement and manage insider risk management
- design a Content Search solution