In Microsoft Defender for Cloud (formerly Azure Security Center), Secure score is defined as “a measurement of an organization’s security posture; the higher the score, the lower the identified risk.” Microsoft states that Defender for Cloud provides security recommendations that “help you harden your resources and increase your secure score.” Among these recommendations is “Apply system updates” for virtual machines—Microsoft describes it as ensuring that “machines should have the latest security updates installed”, and completing this action adds points to your secure score because it remediates a vulnerability class (missing patches).

Defender for Cloud also supports wide scope evaluation: you can “view and manage the secure score across subscriptions and management groups,” allowing organizations with multiple Azure subscriptions to see an aggregated and per-scope score and track improvement actions consistently.

Identity protections are part of Defender for Cloud’s recommendations as well. Under the Azure Security Benchmark controls, Defender for Cloud includes the recommendation that “MFA should be enabled on accounts with owner permissions on your subscription.” Implementing this MFA control earns secure-score points because it mitigates high-impact identity risks.

Therefore, applying system updates (Yes), evaluating across multiple subscriptions (Yes), and enabling MFA (Yes) all increase or contribute to an organization’s secure score in Azure Security Center/Defender for Cloud.