The new Azure Security exam just came out of beta, and I took some time to learn and see if I would pass it. I am happy that I just passed exam AZ-500: Microsoft Azure Security Technologies, which focuses on Microsoft Azure security engineers who implement security controls, maintain the security posture, manages identity and access and protects data, applications, and networks. After passing this exam, you can call yourself a Microsoft Certified: Azure Security Engineer Associate. Azure Security Engineers implement security controls and threat protection, manage identity and access, and protect data, applications, and networks in cloud and hybrid environments as part of the end-to-end infrastructure. That means this exam covers different topics across the Azure infrastructure and many various Azure services like Azure AD, Azure IaaS, Azure Networking, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Databases, Azure Monitor, Azure Security Center and many more.
If you are thinking of taking this exam, check out my AZ-500: Microsoft Azure Security Technologies Exam Study Guide.
Exam AZ-500: Microsoft Azure Security Technologies
Candidates identify and remediate vulnerabilities by using a variety of security tools, implements threat protection, and responds to security incident escalations. As a Microsoft Azure security engineer, candidates often serve as part of a larger team dedicated to cloud-based management and security and may also secure hybrid environments as part of an end-to-end infrastructure.
Candidates for this exam should have strong skills in scripting and automation, a deep understanding of networking, virtualization, and cloud N-tier architecture, and a strong familiarity with cloud capabilities, Microsoft Azure products and services, and other Microsoft products and services.
You can find more detailed information on the Microsoft exam website. There you will find all the skills measured in this exam.
How to prepare for the AZ-500 exam
Exams always have a specific focus; this one covers a broad set of Azure security topics over different Azure services. This means you not only need to have particular security know-how, but also a good overview of the various Azure services. If you don’t have that right now, I recommend that you might start with other exams, such as AZ-900 and AZ-10X for the Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate. But if you want to go forward with the AZ-500 exam and become a Microsoft Certified: Azure Security Engineer Associate, first have a look at the more detailed information on the Microsoft exam website. Start reading through the Microsoft Docs about the different security topics mentioned in the skills measured, and also get some hands-on experience by trining out the various technologies. My favorite place to learn and understand some tutorials about different topics is Microsoft Learn! On Microsoft learn, you can use a lot of different learning modules, and some of them are focused on Azure Security. If you want to know more about Microsoft learn, check out my blog post: Microsoft Learn – A Great Place To Learn!
At Microsoft Ignite The Tour, our team also presented a session on securing your Azure environment, my session in Amsterdam was recorded, you can watch it here: Microsoft Ignite The Tour 2019 Azure Hybrid Session Recordings.
Are you also interested in becoming Microsoft Azure Certified? Check out my blog posts about why you should become Microsoft Azure Certified, how to pick the right Azure exam certification path and how to prepare and pass a Microsoft Azure certification exam. With that, I wish you happy learning and good luck with the AZ-500 Microsoft Azure Security Technologies exam!
