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Setting Managed Microsoft Defender Policy Configurations

Alan
  • Updated

Team: Huntress Managed Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
Product: Managed Microsoft Defender
Environment: Windows OS
Summary: How to set Managed Microsoft Defender policies at the account, organization, and endpoint level.

 

Table of Contents

 

Overview

You can set Managed Defender policies in a few ways within the Huntress dashboard. This article will walk through the process of making those changes at each level. 

If you are looking for the recommended settings for Managed Defender, please review our KB on the Huntress Recommended Managed Microsoft Defender Defaults.

For more information on how Managed Defender policy settings cascade across your environment, please review our guide on Understanding Policy Precedence: Huntress vs. Microsoft Management Tools.

 

Policy Precedence Hierarchy:

This is the order in which Huntress policy is applied, in other words the policy set for an endpoint will always overwrite policy set for the account. This allows you to control with granularity the policy at any level.

Endpoint Policy (Highest Priority)
↓
Organization Policy
↓
Account Policy (Lowest Priority)

 

Account Level Policy Configuration

  1. To configure the Managed Defender policy at the account level you will first need to navigate to the Managed Defender tab in the Huntress dashboard from the account level. 

Huntress "new look":

Huntress classic view:

  1. Once on the Managed Defender dashboard at the account level, select the “Configure” button located on the “Managed Antivirus Status” bar.
  2. From there, you can then set and configure the Managed Defender policy for all organizations and agents. Making the change here will set the same policy for everything under the account (unless an organization has its own policy set). 
    For policy recommendations, see Huntress Recommended Managed Microsoft Defender Defaults



 

Organization Level Policy Configuration

  1. To configure the Managed Defender policy at the organization level, you will first need to navigate to the Managed Defender tab in the Huntress dashboard from the desired organization.

Huntress "new look":

Huntress classic view:

  1. Once on the Managed Defender dashboard at the organization level, select the “Configure” button located on the “Managed Antivirus Status” bar.
  2. From there, you can then set and configure the Managed Defender policy for that organization and all agents under that org (unless an agent has its own individual policy enforced).
    For policy recommendations, see Huntress Recommended Managed Microsoft Defender Defaults

 

Endpoint Level Policy Configuration

  1. To configure the Managed Defender policy at the endpoint level, you will first need to navigate to the Antivirus section from the endpoint/agent of choice. 

  1. Once there, select the “Policy Status” tab and then the “Configure” option. From there, you can set a policy that will only apply to that device. 
    For policy recommendations, see Huntress Recommended Managed Microsoft Defender Defaults

 

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