Model Microsoft Defender for Cloud secure score: achieved points over maximum points, with partial credit from healthy resource ratios.
Microsoft awards each recommendation a maximum score, typically 1 to 10 points, and grants it pro rata to the share of in-scope resources that are healthy. That makes secure score a resource-weighted measure rather than a checklist, and it is why fixing one recommendation across four hundred VMs moves the number far more than fixing four recommendations on one VM. Secure score drives Azure security budgets and reporting, and prioritising by points per recommendation rather than by alert count is usually a two-to-three-fold difference in score movement for the same effort.
Azure Secure Score
Secure score = achieved points ÷ maximum points × 100. Each recommendation awards its points in proportion to healthy resources, so partial completion earns partial credit.
Marginal uplift
Uplift from one recommendation = (its points − its points × healthy share) ÷ maximum points × 100 — the score you gain by finishing it.
Secure score = achieved points ÷ maximum points × 100. Each recommendation awards its points in proportion to healthy resources, so partial completion earns partial credit. Microsoft awards each recommendation a maximum score, typically 1 to 10 points, and grants it pro rata to the share of in-scope resources that are healthy. That makes secure score a resource-weighted measure rather than a checklist, and it is why fixing one recommendation across four hundred VMs moves the number far more than fixing four recommendations on one VM.
Secure score drives Azure security budgets and reporting, and prioritising by points per recommendation rather than by alert count is usually a two-to-three-fold difference in score movement for the same effort.
This calculator takes 9 inputs: Maximum secure score points available, Points currently achieved, Security recommendations in scope, Recommendations fully completed, Healthy assessed resources, Total assessed resources, Points on the largest open recommendation, Healthy resources on that recommendation, Target secure score. The pre-filled defaults are a realistic starting point — replace them with figures from your own environment for a result you can act on.
Almost always new resources or a new recommendation. Deploying twenty VMs without endpoint protection reduces the healthy share on an existing recommendation, and Microsoft periodically adds recommendations, which raises the maximum points. The score is a moving denominator, so track the trend rather than the absolute.
Chase the highest available uplift, which is points multiplied by the unhealthy share. A 10-point recommendation already 90% healthy offers 1 point; a 4-point one at 10% healthy offers 3.6. This calculator computes exactly that figure for the recommendation you enter.