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Microsoft Defender App Now Force-Installed For Microsoft 365 Users (bleepingcomputer.com) 59

Posted by BeauHD from the there's-no-escaping-it dept.
Microsoft is now force-installing the Microsoft Defender for Individuals application when installing or updating the Microsoft 365 apps. BleepingComputer reports: It was first unveiled for Windows 11 Insiders in March 2022 and has been available for customers with Personal or Family subscriptions since June 2022. However, starting earlier this month, it will also be automatically installed when first running the Microsoft 365 installer or after the next update, as spotted by WindowsLatest.

"Starting in late February of 2023, the Microsoft Defender app will be included in the Microsoft 365 installer," the company says in a support document updated last week. "That means that when you install the Microsoft 365 apps on your Windows device, the Microsoft Defender app will automatically be installed for you along with the other apps. If you have an active Microsoft 365 subscription and have already installed the Microsoft 365 apps, then the Microsoft Defender app will be automatically installed for you with the next update."
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Microsoft Defender App Now Force-Installed For Microsoft 365 Users More

Microsoft Defender App Now Force-Installed For Microsoft 365 Users

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  • Not necessarily a bad thing... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TomGreenhaw ( 929233 ) on Tuesday February 28, 2023 @05:08AM (#63329303)
    ....as long as it doesn't conflict with other anti-malware software and doesn't slow down a system much. Hopefully there is an uninstall capability for those that know what they are dealing with.

    • Usually Windows Defender will disable itself if you have another anti-malware product installed, and give you the option to keep using Defender for periodic scans only. There's really no reason to uninstall it, and honestly "uninstalling" it probably just hides it.

      • Usually Windows Defender will disable itself if you have another anti-malware product installed

        This is not the anti-malware service so zero conflict with existing anti-malware product/s

        Admittedly, the naming is terrible and confusing but that's SOP for MS

        • OK so Microsoft Defender and Windows Defender are two different things? And now that I look that up there are 8 different Microsoft Defender products...

          I wonder which one they will be force-installing. I would assume it's Microsoft 365 Defender, but I think that costs extra since it sends all your data to their SIEM.

          I guess we'll never know.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Entrope ( 68843 )

          This is not the anti-malware service so zero conflict with existing anti-malware product/s

          You might want to tell that to Microsoft. Their page for the product [microsoft.com] says:

          Protect your and your family's devices against malware, spyware, and ransomware with continuous antivirus and anti-phishing scans.

          (With a footnote: "New malware protection is not available where these protections exist on iOS and Windows.")

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by CoachS ( 324092 )

            On Windows it uses the built-in Microsoft Defender (or whatever 3rd party AV you might have) to provide the anti-malware protection. On Android or Mac it does the anti-malware protection itself. It's only being automatically installed for Microsoft 365 Family or Personal subscribers on Windows.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by dbialac ( 320955 )
              For now. Microsoft is doing a great job of driving me away from their products. I'm already using AndrOpen Office on my phone and am on the verge of completely dropping Office 365. They seem to have forgotten that what goes on my phone is my decision, not theirs.

            • Combined with the S version that refuses to take anything that doesn't come from the MS Store, this should bring viruses/rootkits/malware to zero just like it's always been on the iPhone.

      • "Usually" is the operative word. (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        I work IT at a local government org. I've gotten back several computers for replacement with our AV (Cisco Secure Endpoint) installed and active that also had Windows Defender active and running, with all the performance problems that entails. These were deploys from before I started, so it's possible they were misconfigured by a previous tech, but the old techs were generally pretty good so I think it's more just typical Windows doing Windows things and reactivating stuff that is specifically supposed to b

  • Good. (Score:5, Informative)

    by gargleblast ( 683147 ) on Tuesday February 28, 2023 @05:20AM (#63329311)
    Because it isn't nagware. It does the job, and it does so unobtrusively. All of McAfee, Norton, AVG, etc. are as annoying as actually being infected.

    • NOT an AV....

      Just saying... RTM [microsoft.com]

      Microsoft Defender for individuals does not replace Windows Security or third-party antivirus on your PC, instead it works with your active security software and allows you to extend your protection to Mac, iOS5, and Android devices, while viewing the status of each device from a single dashboard.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        So it's actually an attempt by the Microsoft virus to infect non-Windows computing devices? Great! Just what people have always needed!

      • Can anyone translate that from marketing speak?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by EvilSS ( 557649 )
          It's a fancy console that shows you AV status of your PC and can pull in info from other devices you own if you install it on them (Mac, Android, and somewhat on iOS). It also has some generic identity you can optionally setup.
        • It slows down your windows 10 pc so you will buy a new windows 11 pc to drive up the quarterly sales and windows 11 usage metrics.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by n0w0rries ( 832057 )

        I'll translate for you:

        Microsoft defender for individuals does not provide antivirus on your PC, instead it monitors your active security software and allows us to extend our monitoring to Mac, IOS5, and Android devices, allowing our advertisers access to each of your devices from a single dashboard.

      • "We want to give a free AV to everybody, but we don't want to down these giant, annoying companies..."

    • Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ClueHammer ( 6261830 ) on Tuesday February 28, 2023 @05:41AM (#63329337)
      No it not nagware, they forced it on you no nagging. It is guaranteed to be spyware though, sending logs of everything you do back to microsoft.

      • Re:Good. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by freeze128 ( 544774 ) on Tuesday February 28, 2023 @08:07AM (#63329511)
        If windows telemetry is already spying on you, why would defender do the same thing?
        • Because anyone with half a clue has disabled it. Now they have a new vector to get the logs, Probably written in such a way to make disabling impossible;

          • Because anyone with half a clue has disabled it.

            If I reverse this and state that people who disabled it have half a clue, then at least 99.9% of the world is clueless. I'm full on technical, and I haven't disabled much if anything in my stock Windows 11 install. Your grievances, concerns, and fixations are not those of others. Casting shade on people who aren't twisted up about the same things as you isn't productive.

          • Because anyone with half a clue has disabled it. Now they have a new vector to get the logs

            That is right up there on the list of the dumbest things ever written. The ability to disable is granted by Microsoft features themselves (registry, firewall, console commands). Claiming they need to publish some easily blockable 3rd party software rather than ... simply issuing a windows update simply in order to spy on users is just absurdly stupid.

        • If windows telemetry is already spying on you, why would defender do the same thing?

          I believe the term is "covering one's bases."

          You can disable telemetry and other such things, and monitor via network sniffing stuff to see if it's actually supplying data (which it probably is, but I digress). Using Anti-[insert badWare phrase here] to get what they want makes it pass over peoples' heads as cost of doing business safely. But they can still use it to get whatever they want because, you know, all traffic is encrypted and maintained at the lowest level of the OS. But it's only doing good t

      • Please let me know which malware software you use that ISN'T constantly communicating with home base?

        Sure, MS's has more 'system awareness' due to the sort of 'inside nature' of MS on MS Windows systems, but this is a case where technologically that's probably to the BENEFIT of the function of the software.

        I don't like egregious data collection either, but sometimes it would seem it's sort of necessary.

        • You have to take the monitoring with your OS... no way around it with Windows, Linux or Mac.

          Why do you want to open an antivirus plus rootkit with somebody else, when you can get this service from your OS vendor...

      • sending logs of everything you do back to microsoft.

        You're confusing Defender with the underlying OS and implying (dangerously) that if you don't have Defender your data will not be sent to the borg.

    • Worse than annoying, they can slow a system down. I have to admit, though I dislike MS in most things, Defender is far less of an anchor. The only problem I have is that every once in a while Windows Update will barf on updating Defender.

  • MS updates (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Errol backfiring ( 1280012 ) on Tuesday February 28, 2023 @05:51AM (#63329353) Journal

    Why is it so extremely hard for Microsoft to do normal software updates? Internet explorer used to be the channel for Windows updates in the days of Windows 3.1. They compromised their own updates to force windows 10 onto users that did not want it, and now this. We are back to the infrastructure of Windows 3.1 again.

    If Defender should be part of Windows, just add it to the Windows updates. But it should definitely not be shoehorned through the Office updates.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Why is it so extremely hard for Microsoft to do normal software updates?

      Because they are institutionally stupid and arrogant and have a fundamental distrust and disrespect for "the user" whom they believe is even stupider than they are. Much like mark "dumb fucks" zuckerberg, and so on. Corporate attitude typically comes from the founders and lingers.

      The amazing thing is that this utter disrespect is called "not necessarily a bad thing" or even "good" by various commenters here. Some sort of Stockholm syndrome, I'm sure.

      • Could not agree more. I love when user apathy is intentionally construed as consent or even eagerness. "Hey, everyone didn't uninstall our product when we lied about that update. They must be totally okay with us lying all the time then! Well shit, here's a "vital and critical" mandatory update. What's in it? Just Spyware and advertising, but you said that was okay. Now my friends will do the same and we create a new normal in the process!
        We can turn "what the market will bear" to "what we condition the mar

    • If Defender should be part of Windows, just add it to the Windows updates. But it should definitely not be shoehorned through the Office updates.

      It's the only way they can force the installation on office users that don't run Windows.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by CoachS ( 324092 )

        The Microsoft Defender app is only being automatically installed for subscribers running Windows. If you're on iOS, Mac, or Android you still have to download/install it manually if you want it.

    • Defender is part of Windows and updated through Windows Update. This is a separate product. I'm not sure what the point of it is, but it's separate.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by CoachS ( 324092 )

        The app gives you a cross-device dashboard to see if you have security issues on other device you've installed it on as well. And it adds identity theft monitoring, at least in the US.

        https://support.microsoft.com/... [microsoft.com]

        • Your PC doesn't monitor for ID Theft... it's an insurance policy.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by CoachS ( 324092 )

            The Microsoft Defender service monitors for ID theft; it's part of the app. You can tell it what info (social security number, credit cards, whatever) you want it to watch for and if it spots any of that leaked in a breach it notifies you and gives recommendations of what to do.

            There's also a $1M insurance policy.

    • Why is it so extremely hard for Microsoft to do normal software updates? Internet explorer used to be the channel for Windows updates in the days of Windows 3.1.

      IE was the channel in the days of Windows 9x and Windows 2000. Even then, it was a gateway for OS functionality that was accessed through the hilariously insecure ActiveX architecture. There are alternative programs that could identify, download, and install missing patches without using IE. What's happening here isn't all that different.

      The Microsoft Defender being added here isn't the AV. That's now called Windows Security and it is handled through Windows Updates. Defender is a console application that a

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Osgeld ( 1900440 )

      windows 3.11 for workgroups took several floppy disks just in order connect to the internet and internet explorer was an optional part of the windows 95 plus package

      now get off my lawn

  • Don't you mean, "included with subscription"? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sabbede ( 2678435 ) on Tuesday February 28, 2023 @07:24AM (#63329447)
    This doesn't sound like something being forced on consumers, it sounds like they included a new application to the subscription. Sensible people might call it, "added value", or perhaps even, "more for your money".

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I guess it's like buying heroin and getting fentanyl as a bonus. More for your money.

  • Yet another... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jmccue ( 834797 ) on Tuesday February 28, 2023 @07:35AM (#63329457) Homepage

    Yet another reason to avoid M/S Office 365. If people really cared about security they would use Libraoffice or maybe M/S Office locally on their PC. Can Office even be purchased to run locally these days ?

    Is this disabled on the pro version of Windows 11 ? This will add lots of fun to the corporate intranet.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by CoachS ( 324092 )

      Microsoft 365 apps do run locally. If you mean the version that doesn't get feature updates, yes, you can still buy that if you really want to.

      The Microsoft Defender app is only installed for customers signed in with a Family or Personal subscription. If you have a business or enterprise subscription then your organization probably installs Defender for Endpoint or some other enterprise security solution for you, but that's up to them.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by tokul ( 682258 )

      > Can Office even be purchased to run locally these days ?

      Office Home & Business 2021 - 149 EUR

  • â¦where you have to have an MS account to inaugurate Win11. Yes, I know thereâ(TM)s a workaround. The more I know MS, the more I love my Mac and RPi (sung off-key to the tune of âoeThe more I know my car, the more I love my bicycle.â).

  • The Defender App != Windows Defender. If you think this has some extra security or privacy implications, then please wipe the angry froth from your mouth and put a minimum amount of effort into understanding what is being discussed before posting.

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