Microsoft AZ-500
The implementation-level Azure security certification: what to configure, where, and how to verify it.
Updated
- Identity and access management in Entra ID: role assignments, PIM, Conditional Access, MFA, app registrations
- Platform protection: networking (NSGs, Azure Firewall, WAF, private endpoints), hosts and containers (AKS, ACR)
- Securing compute, storage and databases: encryption at rest, Key Vault, SQL auditing and dynamic masking
- Security operations with Defender for Cloud and Sentinel: policy, alerting, secure score
Current exam scope
Under Microsoft's current skills outline, AZ-500 weights four areas: secure identity and access (15-20%), secure networking (20-25%), secure compute/storage/databases (20-25%), and securing Azure with Defender for Cloud and Sentinel (30-35% — now the largest single block). That last weighting matters in practice: knowing how to configure a control matters less than knowing how to prove it's working and catch drift, which is exactly the posture-management and detection work I do with Defender for Cloud and Sentinel day to day.
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