Preparing for the SC-400: Microsoft Information Protection Administrator (April 2021)

Back in February, I posted another blog that outlined each of Microsoft’s new certifications around security and compliance. Today, we’ll dig into one of those exams, the SC-400: Microsoft Information Protection Administrator so you can get certified! Without further ado, let’s see what this exam entails!

There are three main components to this exam:

• Implementing Information Protection
• Implementing Data Loss Prevention
• Implementing Information Governance 

To help you prepare for this exam, I’ll include links to each of these topics so you can go straight to the source and avoid the confusion of not knowing what to study.

Implementing Information Protection (35-40%)

Create and manage sensitive information types

• Select a sensitive information type based on an organization’s requirements
• Create and manage custom sensitive information types [2]
• Create custom sensitive information types with Exact Data Match (EDM)
• Implement document fingerprinting
• Create a keyword dictionary

Create and manage trainable classifiers

• Identify when to use trainable classifiers
• Create a trainable classifier
• Verify a trainable classifier is performing properly
• Retrain a classifier

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Implement and manage sensitivity labels

• Identify roles and permissions for administering sensitivity labels
• Create sensitivity labels
• Configure and manage sensitivity label policies
• Apply sensitivity labels to Microsoft Teams, Microsoft 365 groups, and SharePoint sites
• Configure and publish automatic labeling policies (excluding MCAS scenarios)
• Monitor label usage by using label analytics
• Apply bulk classification to on-premises data by using the AIP unified labeling scanner
• Manage protection settings and marking for applied sensitivity labels
• Apply protections and restrictions to email including content marking, usage, permission, encryption, expiration, etc.
• Apply protections and restrictions to files including content marking, usage, permission, encryption, expiration, etc.

Plan and implement encryption for email messages

• Define requirements for implementing Office 365 Message Encryption
• Implement Office 365 Advanced Message Encryption

Implement Data Loss Prevention (30-35%)

Create and configure data loss prevention policies

• Recommend a data loss prevention solution for an organization
• Configure data loss prevention for policy precedence
• Configure policies for Microsoft Exchange email
• Configure policies for Microsoft SharePoint sites
• Configure policies for Microsoft OneDrive accounts
• Configure policies for Microsoft Teams chat and channel messages
• Integrate Microsoft Cloud App Security (MCAS) with Microsoft Information Protection
• Configure policies in Microsoft Cloud App Security (MCAS)
• Implement data loss prevention policies in test mode

Implement and monitor Microsoft Endpoint data loss prevention

• Configure policies for endpoints
• Configure Endpoint data loss prevention settings
• Recommend configurations that enable devices for Endpoint data loss prevention policies
• Monitor endpoint activities

Manage and monitor data loss prevention policies and activities

• Manage and respond to data loss prevention policy violations
• Review and analyze data loss prevention reports
• Manage permissions for data loss prevention reports
• Manage data loss prevention violations in Microsoft Cloud App Security (MCAS)

Implement Information Governance (25-30%)

Configure retention policies and labels

• Create and apply retention labels
• Create and apply retention label policies
• Configure and publish auto-apply label policies

Manage data retention in Microsoft 365

• Create and apply retention policies in Microsoft SharePoint and OneDrive
• Create and apply retention policies in Microsoft Teams
• Recover content in Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and OneDrive
• Recover content in Microsoft Exchange
• Implement retention policies and tags in Microsoft Exchange
• Apply mailbox holds in Microsoft Exchange
• Implement Microsoft Exchange Online archiving policies

Implement records management in Microsoft 365

• Configure labels for records management
• Manage and migrate retention requirements with a file plan
• Configure automatic retention using File Plan descriptors
• Classify records using retention labels and policies
• Implement in-place records management in Microsoft SharePoint
• Configure event-based retention
• Manage disposition of records

That wraps up all of the topics covered on the SC-400. I also encourage you to check out Microsoft Learn content on this exam, which can be found here. I hope you have found this helpful, and I wish you the best of luck on your exam!