Turn on Tamper Protection
Implementation Effort: Medium – While enabling tamper protection is technically simple, deploying it across a diverse environment requires coordination with endpoint management, policy testing, and ensuring compatibility with existing security tools and processes.
User Impact: High – Tamper protection restricts local changes to security settings, which can impact developers, IT staff, or power users who rely on local configuration changes. Clear communication and support are needed to manage expectations and avoid disruption.
Overview
Tamper protection is a Microsoft Defender for Endpoint feature that prevents unauthorized changes to key security settings, such as real-time protection, antivirus configurations, and cloud-delivered protection. It helps block malware or attackers—even those with administrative privileges—from disabling security features during an attack.
To deploy tamper protection, organizations must ensure that Microsoft Defender Antivirus is active and that devices are managed through tools like Microsoft Intune or Configuration Manager. While the feature can be enabled with a few clicks, enterprise-wide rollout requires policy alignment, exception handling, and user education. Without tamper protection, attackers can silently disable endpoint defenses, increasing the risk of compromise and data loss.
This feature supports the Zero Trust principle of "Assume Breach" by ensuring that even if attackers gain access to a device, they cannot disable critical security controls.