Acting on Microsoft Secure Score without Panic: Source Links

These are the official Microsoft references I used to write the Secure Score article, focused on how scoring works, how recommendations are evaluated, and how to document third-party mitigations. If you want to sanity-check a claim or go deeper on a specific section, start here.

• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/defender-xdr/microsoft-secure-score
  Microsoft’s main overview of Secure Score: what it is, what it measures, how scoring works (including partial points), and how non-Microsoft solutions/alternate mitigations can still earn points.

• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/defender-xdr/microsoft-secure-score-improvement-actions
  How to read the Secure Score dashboard and recommendations list, including the different score views (planned, current license, achievable), recommendation statuses (planned, risk accepted, resolved via third party/alternate mitigation), and typical update timing (24–48 hours).

• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/identity/monitoring-health/concept-identity-secure-score
  Background on the Identity Secure Score concept in Entra: how identity-specific recommendations align to Microsoft guidance and how score changes over time.

• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/defender-vulnerability-management/tvm-security-recommendation
  Details on Defender Vulnerability Management recommendations and how exceptions work (relevant to the “device” category behavior where Secure Score points/status may be driven by DVMS recommendations and exception types).

• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/defender-xdr/secure-score-history
  How to track Secure Score over time, review changes, and use history/trends to understand movement instead of reacting to the number day-to-day.