You're given points for the following actions:

• Configuring recommended security features
• Doing security-related tasks
• Addressing the recommended action with a third-party application or software, or an alternate mitigation

Some recommended actions only give points when fully completed. Some give partial points if the organization completes them for some devices or users. If you can't or don't want to enact one of the recommended actions, you can choose to accept the risk or remaining risk.

If you have a license for one of the supported Microsoft products, then the Secure Score dashboard displays recommendations for those products. The dashboard displays the full set of possible recommendations for a product, regardless of license edition, subscription, or plan. This way, you can understand security best practices and improve your score. Your absolute security posture, represented by Secure Score, stays the same no matter what licenses your organization owns for a specific product. Keep in mind that you should balance security with usability, and not every recommendation can work for your environment.

Secure Score updates an organization's score in real time to reflect the information presented in the visualizations and recommended action pages. Secure Score also syncs daily to receive system data about your achieved points for each action.