Ensure 'Turn on behavior monitoring' is set to 'Enabled'

HighLevel 1Automateddefender

Description

This policy setting allows you to configure behavior monitoring for Microsoft Defender Antivirus. The recommended state for this setting is: Enabled. Rationale: When running an antivirus solution such as Microsoft Defender Antivirus, it is important to ensure that it is configured to heuristically monitor in real-time for suspicious and known malicious activity. Audit reads the Group Policy registry value and prints 'compliant', 'unset' (policy not configured, reported as FAIL) or the non-compliant value. Registry value: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Real-TimeProtection:DisableBehaviorMonitoring (REG_DWORD); compliant when it is 0. Remediation writes 0 locally; in a domain set it through the ADMX so Group Policy does not revert it.

How it is checked

Audit method: Windows registry

registry

$v = (Get-ItemProperty -Path 'Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Real-TimeProtection' -Name 'DisableBehaviorMonitoring' -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue).'DisableBehaviorMonitoring'; if ($null -eq $v) { 'unset' } elseif (($null -ne $v -and @(0) -contains [int64]$v)) { 'compliant' } else { "non-compliant: $v" }

Expected output: compliant

How it is fixed

Fix method: Shell command

shell

$p = 'Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Real-TimeProtection'; if (-not (Test-Path -Path $p)) { New-Item -Path $p -Force | Out-Null }; New-ItemProperty -Path $p -Name 'DisableBehaviorMonitoring' -Value 0 -PropertyType DWord -Force | Out-Null

Properties

Operating systems: Any
Tags: defenderantiviruscis-l1
Reference: CIS Microsoft Defender Antivirus Benchmark v1.0.0 - 1.10.6 Ensure 'Turn on behavior monitoring' is set to 'Enabled'

Check this host

Run this on a machine you are allowed to audit. The scan is read-only.

shell

tmaegis scan --target defender