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Microsoft Certified: Cybersecurity Architect Expert (SC-100) practice exam and study path

A free, timed 60-question SC-100 practice exam in 100 minutes, scored by domain, with every option explained after you submit. Also 116 practice questions you can check one at a time, a page for every task in the exam guide, and a study path. No sign-up.

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Cybersecurity Architect Expert exam pack:

$11.99for 12 months

For security architects who turn a Zero Trust strategy into Microsoft security designs: ransomware resilience and the reference architectures, security operations, identity, privileged access and compliance, posture management, endpoints, cloud services and networks, and Microsoft 365, application and data security.

The exam

Exam code
SC-100
Questions
Not yet published
Time
100 minutes
Passing score
700 of 1,000 (scaled)
Exam fee
$165 (USD)
Question types
multiple choice, multiple response

Exam SC-100 is Microsoft's expert-level security architecture exam, and the certification also requires one of three associate certifications: Identity and Access Administrator, Security Operations Analyst, or Cloud and AI Security Engineer. 700 passes; the exam is offered in ten languages and has no retirement date. Microsoft doesn't publish the exam time or the number of questions for SC-100: its exam duration page gives expert role-based exams 100 minutes without labs and says most exams have 40 to 60 questions. The fee is set by the country or region; the SC-100 page shows no price of its own, and USD 165 is the United States price Microsoft lists for its SC role-based exams. The certification renews every year with a free online assessment. Our forms use 60 questions split 13 / 17 / 17 / 13, close to the midpoints of the guide's ranges, and most are multi-requirement design scenarios.

From Microsoft's certification page and exam guide, checked Oct 25, 2026.

Domains and weights

  • Domain 1: Design solutions that align with security best practices and priorities

    22%

  • Domain 2: Design security operations, identity, and compliance capabilities

    28%

  • Domain 3: Design security solutions for infrastructure

    28%

  • Domain 4: Design security solutions for applications and data

    22%

On our roadmap this comes after Security Operations Analyst Associate. See every certification.

Practice

116 original practice questions, every option explained with the Microsoft documentation page that proves it. Free, no sign-up; progress stays on this device.

Your results on this device →

More practice exams

The lessons, the sample questions on every task page and the first full practice exam are free and stay free. A pack adds the further timed SC-100 practice exams.

Cybersecurity Architect Expert exam pack

$11.99for 12 months

  • Every paid SC-100 practice exam, timed, with every option explained
  • The next version of this exam included when it changes within your 12 months
  • 12 months of access. One payment, nothing renews by itself.
  • 14-day refund, no conditions
  • 14-day refund, no conditions: ask within 14 days of buying and you get the whole payment back.
  • No pass guarantee. These are practice exams written by us from the exam guide and the Microsoft documentation; a score here does not predict your result on the real exam.

Study path

One module per exam domain. Lessons that already exist on BytePatterns are linked; the rest are being written.

  1. Module 1: Design solutions that align with security best practices and priorities

    1. 1Business-critical assets, threat priorities and resiliency goalsTask 1.1

      Lesson coming

    2. 2Backup and restore that survive ransomware: immutable vaults and recovery orderTask 1.1

      Partly covered by: Disaster Recovery: RPO & RTO

    3. 3The ransomware plan: privileged access first, then BCDR, and security updatesTask 1.1

      Lesson coming

    4. 4The Microsoft Cybersecurity Reference Architectures and the cloud security benchmarkTask 1.2

      Lesson coming

    5. 5Insider, external and supply chain attacks; AI workloads under the benchmarkTask 1.2

      Partly covered by: Guardrails

    6. 6The Zero Trust adoption frameworkTask 1.2

      Lesson coming

    7. 7Cloud Adoption Framework security and the Well-Architected security pillarTask 1.3

      Lesson coming

    8. 8Azure landing zones and governance at scaleTask 1.3

      Partly covered by: Organizations, SCPs & Control Tower

    9. 9Secure AI adoption and a DevSecOps processTask 1.3

      Lesson coming

  2. Module 2: Design security operations, identity, and compliance capabilities

    1. 10XDR and SIEM: Defender XDR, Microsoft Sentinel and the unified portalTask 2.1

      Lesson coming

    2. 11Centralized logging and auditing, hybrid and multicloud monitoringTask 2.1

      Partly covered by: Observability Basics, CloudWatch, Alarms & X-Ray

    3. 12Automation, incident response, hunting and MITRE ATT&CK coverageTask 2.1

      Lesson coming

    4. 13Microsoft Entra ID for hybrid and multicloud; external and agent identitiesTask 2.2

      Lesson coming

    5. 14Conditional Access, continuous access evaluation, risk and protected actionsTask 2.2

      Lesson coming

    6. 15Secrets, keys and certificates; hardening AD DSTask 2.2

      Partly covered by: KMS, Envelope Encryption & Private CA, ConfigMaps, Secrets & Env

    7. 16The enterprise access model and privileged rolesTask 2.3

      Partly covered by: Shared Responsibility & IAM

    8. 17PIM, entitlement management, access reviews and cloud infrastructure entitlementsTask 2.3

      Lesson coming

    9. 18Securing tenant administration, AD DS resilience and privileged access workstationsTask 2.3

      Lesson coming

    10. 19From compliance requirements to controls: Microsoft Purview and Azure PolicyTask 2.4

      Partly covered by: Organizations, SCPs & Control Tower

    11. 20Regulatory compliance in Defender for CloudTask 2.4

      Lesson coming

  3. Module 3: Design security solutions for infrastructure

    1. 21Defender for Cloud posture, Secure Score and workload protection plansTask 3.1

      Lesson coming

    2. 22Azure Arc, Defender EASM and Exposure Management attack pathsTask 3.1

      Lesson coming

    3. 23Servers, clients and mobile devices: requirements and security baselinesTask 3.2

      Lesson coming

    4. 24IoT, OT and ICS with Defender for IoT; Windows LAPSTask 3.2

      Lesson coming

    5. 25Security baselines for SaaS, PaaS and IaaS; web and IoT workloadsTask 3.3

      Lesson coming

    6. 26Containers and container orchestrationTask 3.3

      Partly covered by: ConfigMaps, Secrets & Env, Ports, Networks & Volumes

    7. 27Securing Azure AI servicesTask 3.3

      Lesson coming

    8. 28Network designs against security requirementsTask 3.4

      Partly covered by: VPC: Subnets, NAT & Firewalls, Hybrid Networking & DNS

    9. 29Security Service Edge: Microsoft Entra Internet Access and Private AccessTask 3.4

      Lesson coming

  4. Module 4: Design security solutions for applications and data

    1. 30Microsoft 365 posture, Defender for Office 365 and Defender for Cloud AppsTask 4.1

      Lesson coming

    2. 31Intune, Purview in Microsoft 365, and Microsoft 365 Copilot data securityTask 4.1

      Lesson coming

    3. 32Application portfolio posture, threat modeling and the secure development lifecycleTask 4.2

      Lesson coming

    4. 33Workload identities, API Management and Web Application FirewallTask 4.2

      Partly covered by: Designing a REST API, Rate Limiting

    5. 34Data discovery and classification, threats to data, and data used by AITask 4.3

      Partly covered by: Finding and Masking PII

    6. 35Encryption with Key Vault; Azure SQL, Cosmos DB and Storage security; Defender for Storage and DatabasesTask 4.3

      Partly covered by: KMS, Envelope Encryption & Private CA

Every task in the exam guide

The exam guide splits each domain into task statements. Each one has a page with a short summary, the lessons that teach it and open sample questions.

Domain 1: Design solutions that align with security best practices and priorities

Domain 2: Design security operations, identity, and compliance capabilities

Domain 3: Design security solutions for infrastructure

Domain 4: Design security solutions for applications and data

How these questions are made

  • Written by us from the exam guide's task statements and the Microsoft documentation — never from real exam content.
  • Every option carries its own explanation and a link to the Microsoft page that proves it.
  • A question enters a timed exam only after an independent check; until then it is a practice question.
  • Results are a plain percentage, per domain too — not an imitation of Microsoft's scaled score.

Questions about the SC-100 practice exam

Is the SC-100 practice exam free?
Yes. The full practice exam (60 questions, 100 minutes) is free with no sign-up, and so are the 116 practice questions, the task pages and the study path. Your attempts are saved in this browser, on this device.
How many questions does it have, and is it timed?
60 questions in 100 minutes: the real SC-100 pace, scaled to this form. When the time runs out, the exam is submitted as it stands.
Are the answers explained?
After you submit, not during: like the real exam, the timed exam gives no feedback until the end. Then you get your score overall and per exam domain, and every question with each option explained and a link to the Microsoft documentation page behind it. In practice mode an answer is explained as soon as you check it.
What does the Cybersecurity Architect Expert exam pack add?
3 more timed practice exams (Practice exam 1: 60 questions, 100 minutes; Practice exam 2: 60 questions, 100 minutes; Practice exam 3: 60 questions, 100 minutes), each scored and explained the same way, and the next version of this exam if it changes within your 12 months. 12 months of access. One payment, nothing renews by itself. Everything above stays free. See the pack.
Can I get a refund?
Yes, with no conditions: ask within 14 days of buying and you get the whole payment back. The details are in the terms.
Is this an official Microsoft practice exam?
No. BytePatterns is not affiliated with, endorsed or sponsored by Microsoft. Every question is written by us from the public exam guide and the Microsoft documentation, never from real exam content, and a score here does not predict your result on the real exam. Microsoft lists its own preparation resources on its certification page.