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Check: WNDF-AV-000077

Microsoft Defender Antivirus STIG: WNDF-AV-000077 (in version v2 r6)

Title

Microsoft Defender AV must enable heuristics. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

Always-on protection consists of real-time protection, behavior monitoring, and heuristics to identify malware based on known suspicious and malicious activities.

Check Content

Verify the policy value for Computer Configuration >> Administrative Templates >> Windows Components >> Microsoft Defender Antivirus >> Scan >> Turn on heuristics is set to "Enabled"; otherwise, this is a finding. Procedure: Use the Windows Registry Editor to navigate to the following key: HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Scan Criteria: If the value "DisableHeuristics" is REG_DWORD = 0, this is not a finding. If the value is 1, this is a finding.

Fix Text

Set the policy value for Computer Configuration >> Administrative Templates >> Windows Components >> Microsoft Defender Antivirus >> Scan >> Turn on heuristics to "Enabled". Click "OK". Click "Apply".

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-278680r1144083_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-278680

Group Title: SRG-APP-000278

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CCIs

CCIs tied to check.

Number	Definition
CCI-001242	The organization configures malicious code protection mechanisms to perform real-time scans of files from external sources at endpoints as the files are downloaded, opened, or executed in accordance with organizational security policy.

Controls

Controls tied to check. These are derived from the CCIs shown above.

Number	Title
No controls are assigned to this check