Helient Systems :

by Aaron Silber
Managing Director – NY Region

In an ongoing effort to be proactive and attempt to ward off malware attacks, Microsoft (MS) constantly updates its Anti-virus program Windows Defender. The updates that everyone is familiar with are the definition files which allow the product to protect against the latest known threats. Recently MS announced that in addition to these updates, they will release updates to the Windows Defender program itself.

In the past, updates to Windows Defender only occurred with the release of the operating system updates; this is no longer the case. MS will now push out updates to the program as well as the definitions and recommends that everyone install both types of updates. In order to accommodate this new paradigm, a change in the folder location for the binaries was necessary.

Administrators need to be on the lookout and update their systems appropriately with the new file paths or AppLocker may kick in and block the downloads, leaving your system out of date and potentially vulnerable. This change should not be put off as these program updates will now be released monthly.

Helient strongly recommends that anyone running Windows Defender and AppLocker on their Windows 10 or Windows Server 2016 update as soon as possible. Helient has a team of experts on hand ready to assist.

For more information, please see all of the details in this MS KB article: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4052623/update-for-windows-defender-antimalware-platform.