Microsoft Defender for Cloud Secure Score Not Updating Despite Recommendations Showing Completed

Question

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Secure Score Not Updating Despite Recommendations Showing Completed

Sumanth Myakala 10 Microsoft External Staff

Issue Summary

We are observing an inconsistency in Microsoft Defender for Cloud Secure Score calculations.

Multiple recommendations are showing a status of "Completed"; however, the overall Secure Score is not improving as expected. In addition, when opening the recommendation details, the affected resource list is blank even though the recommendation appears in the Secure Score recommendations view.

Observed Behavior

• Recommendation "Machines should have a vulnerability assessment solution" shows Status = Completed. • Recommendation "SQL servers should have vulnerability assessment configured" shows Status = Completed. • Affected Resources count displays 0. • Opening the recommendation details page does not show any unhealthy or affected resources. • The recommendation remains visible in Secure Score recommendations. • Secure Score percentage does not increase even after the recommendation status changes to Completed.

Expected Behavior

Once all affected resources are remediated and the recommendation status is marked as Completed, Secure Score should be recalculated and reflect the corresponding score improvement. Recommendation details should also display the underlying resource evaluation information or clearly indicate why the recommendation remains score-impacting.

Troubleshooting Performed

• Verified recommendation status is marked Completed. • Verified affected resources count is 0. • Refreshed Microsoft Defender for Cloud recommendations page. • Opened recommendation details and validated that no resource information is displayed. • Observed that Secure Score remains unchanged despite remediation completion.

Request

Please investigate:

Why Secure Score is not increasing despite completed recommendation status.
Whether the recommendation evaluation state is stuck or stale.
Whether Secure Score recalculation is failing or delayed.
Why recommendation details display no affected resources while the recommendation continues to appear in Secure Score.
Whether backend synchronization or re-evaluation is required.

Screenshots demonstrating the issue are attached to this support request.Document 2026-08-18.pdf

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Answer 1

Hello @Sumanth Myakala

This does not necessarily indicate a stuck recommendation.

Defender for Cloud updates recommendation/resource health more frequently than Secure Score. Microsoft states that each Secure Score control is recalculated approximately every 8 hours, so it is possible for a recommendation to show Completed and 0 affected resources before the score reflects the change.

For vulnerability assessment specifically, Microsoft also notes that it can take up to 24 hours after remediation for resources to move to the healthy state.

There is also an important change affecting “Machines should have a vulnerability assessment solution.” Microsoft announced on September 10, 2026 that this grouped recommendation will be deprecated on October 11, 2026 as Defender for Cloud moves to individual vulnerability assessment recommendations.

I would therefore:

Allow up to 24 hours after the last remediation.
Check the Secure Score control's Current score and Potential score increase rather than only the recommendation status.
For the machine VA recommendation, also review the new individual recommendations.
If the recommendation remains Completed with 0 resources and the associated control still has an incorrect score after 24 hours, open a Microsoft support case because this would indicate a possible backend Secure Score synchronization/evaluation issue.

If this answer helps, please mark it as Answered.