Hello Viruses. Is Windows Defender any good?

[Petrovic]

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/how-protect-pc-from-viruses
Windows Defender - it is one of the security levels in windows 8 & 8.1
+
Secure Boot
Windows 8's Secure Boot feature builds on the open standard UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) specification to make Windows incredibly resistant to malicious modification from preboot to full OS booting, preventing firmware attacks. The risk of firmware-attacking malware is rising, if you believe the National Institute of Standards and Technologies, the military, and many Fortune 100 CSOs.

Prior to UEFI and Secure Boot, you would be notified about malicious firmware and OS boot code modification in Windows only if you enabled BitLocker Drive Encryption with the Platform Configuration Registers (PCRs) configured (the default). However, enabling drive encryption to get a boot integrity solution was considered overkill by many.

UEFI and Windows Secure Boot only allow code signed by pre-approved digital certificates to run during the firmware and OS boot process. If anything unsigned tries to modify the boot process (think rootkit), the UEFI-based firmware will undo the change, as does the OS. After receiving a healthy and validated handoff from the firmware, it continues to ensure that only pre-approved, digitally signed code can be run.

Although other OSes can and will use UEFI secure boot, Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 are the only OSes in which it will be enabled by default. Other than Google's Chromium OS, few other popular OSes have plans to implement UEFI-like protections or are still arguing about how to pull it off and when to implement.

Early-launch antimalware
Windows 8 extends its safe boot protection by ensuring that pre-approved antimalware software gets loaded before malware can take control. Previously, malware could "walk the interrupt vector chain" and get in front of the OS or antimalware software. Once that happened, it wasn't Microsoft's or your OS anymore. Now pre-approved antimalware software always gets loaded ahead of the malicious programs, which improves the chances of detection and removal.

SmartScreen
SmartScreen is the feature that has made Internet Explorer one of the safest browsers you can run. It has prevented millions of IE users from being infected each day. It does so using a combination of application reputation and website reputation and by looking for malicious behaviors.

SmartScreen began life in IE8 and was significantly improved in IE9 and IE10. But that protection wasn't being applied equally across the entire user experience. For example, what if the user ran a non-IE browser or was downloading content outside of the browser experience? Windows 8 developers worried as well, so SmartScreen was replicated to the entire OS. When you run Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012, you're getting SmartScreen protection on every network download.

Dynamic Access Control
Essentially, Dynamic Access Control is Windows access control (that is, file and folder permissions) on steroids. In the old model, you could limit access only by user or group membership. But with Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, you can allow or deny access based upon almost any defined claim or attribute.

Claims can be almost any piece of data you store in Active Directory (AD) belonging to a particular security principal (such as a user or a group), including device ID, log-on method, location, and personal information. For example, you can allow access to a particular folder only to local users using a Windows Surface device. Or you can only allow access by the user's pre-approved, company-issued iPad, but not to their personal, non-approved iPad. I have many customers who desperately want the latter ability without having to purchase third-party software. Microsoft Windows has always had solid, reliable access control; Dynamic Access Control ups the ante.

PC Refresh and Reset
Sometimes no matter how many security features you have, you can't stop end-users from bypassing all warnings and installing malware. It's going to happen. Now you can reset Windows back to its original, known, clean safe state. You can choose between resetting everything to a blank slate or saving your application settings and data. You could do this in previous versions, but it always took a lot longer than simply clicking on a single button and acknowledging the warning prompt.

Normally, security features don't sell anything. Features and flashy GUIs do. Many Windows competitors sell briskly despite being continually late to adopt security features Microsoft pushed early on, such as built-in full disk encryption, ASLR, DEP, and more. But Windows 8 takes a big step forward with added security features -- out of the box, enabled from the start. Despite quibbles over the GUI, I have little doubt those improvements alone will sell millions of copies of Windows 8 to security-conscious customers.
Text source

Windows 8.1: The key security improvements
http://www.infoworld.com/article/26...ndows-8-1--the-key-security-improvements.html
Top 5 Key Security Improvements Found in Windows 8.1
http://blogs.technet.com/b/canitpro...curity-improvements-found-in-windows-8-1.aspx
Windows 8.1 Security and Control
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security-and-control.aspx

 

[JakeXPMan]

For people who say, I've been using MSE or Windows defender and "NEVER BEEN INFECTED", this is a good story to read.

But *long story* short, you'll never know that you're infected, because MSE is that poor.

VERY TRUE STATEMENT!

MSE provides only a bare minimum, it's still better then no anti-virus I guess? You're better off putting trust in Malwarebytes and it's not even an Anti-virus but it's found much valid threats then MSE has done for me.

I figured I was safe with MSE, because I use WOT add on (to avoid unsafe websites), spywareblaster, and a firewall etc.

Nope!, the new 2.0 Malwarebytes picked up 11 more things probably from me surfing to so called "safe" websites. I figure if you use the internet, you have a risk of malwares. It can help to use caution, but it's not as effective as a reliable AV.

This last month, my USB stick went blank outta' nowhere, no warning. Never happened to me before, that's when I said bye to MSE. I didn't feel safe being online with it anymore.

My new free AV picked up an infection in my system restore already a week ago. I was wondering why sometimes my restores aren't working, and sometimes they do work.

My computer and hard drive is running smoother and less noisy too without MSE processes.

My VOTE: NO!

 

[jamescv7]

To answer this question I will base it in my experience, MSE/WD is good at all cost to detect common attacks when a user accidents plugging an infected USB or unknown website but as we all know the protection state isn't solid therefore be exercise with measure.

(Using Windows 8.1 with built in AV)

 

[Cristodulo Andrei]

look here http://ddvsg.blogspot.com/2014/11/is-windows-defender-good.html

 

[the unknwn]

the cyberworld isn't safe any more and windows defender can't protect you from emerging threats in the wild windows defender is a junk in windows os on av comparatives it scored lower than threat track vipre windows defender is the worst av at all

 

[hjlbx]

the cyberworld isn't safe any more and windows defender can't protect you from emerging threats in the wild windows defender is a junk in windows os on av comparatives it scored lower than threat track vipre windows defender is the worst av at all

Microsoft includes it as a bare minimum of protection. Microsoft has a long-standing position that the PC owner should add additional protections... but the OS will not prompt you to do that.

MSE/WD is not junk. It is simply limited for a number of valid reasons - mostly because Microsoft does not want to enter the AV business.

In any case, with free options like Avira Free, Avast! Free, AVG Free, Qihoo Free, Comodo Free, etc there are some really good options to enhance system protections.

 

[the unknwn]

i know but microsoft should prrovide maximum protection even they don't want to enter the av business you buy microsoft os then you need something to protect you from emerging threats come on microsoft just my opinion about mse/windows defender

 

[hjlbx]

i know but microsoft should prrovide maximum protection even they don't want to enter the av business you buy microsoft os then you need something to protect you from emerging threats come on microsoft just my opinion about mse/windows defender

The main reason Microsoft will not provide better protection is that they wish to avoid anti-trust lawsuits here in the US and in Europe. MS was sued both here in the US and Europe because of Internet Explorer.

If they offer a really good AV and everyone chooses to use it to the exclusion of everything else, then AV vendors will cry "foul" and sue MS for monopolistic practices. This is what happened with Internet Explorer.

To me it doesn't really make any sense, but this is the BS that happens and screws only the user in the end. I would think that Microsoft has the capability of producing a 1st-rate AV and most users would probably adopt it outright because of convenience and no additional cost.

That would really hit a lot of AV vendors in the pocket. I can just see it now... McAfee, Symantec, Kaspersky all taking legal action to prevent it.

It's a fight Microsoft wants no part of...

 

[the unknwn]

oh i see good explanation i understand it now

 

[mike0921]

if u want u can try avast! free or qihoo 360 is. both are exellent free products.

ording to the report FreddyFreeloaders link sends you too Avast is pretty far down on their list. Out of the 22 AV programs they tested Avast came in 20th!

I use Avast too and have alway thought and read good things about it... I wonder now. Anybody have comments on this? Anybody have comments about that report: av-comparatives.info. in Freddy's post above? Second one in the thread.

http://www.av-comparatives.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/avc_prevalence_201403_en.pdf

I'm not well versed on this subject and make my decions on what I read in forums like MalwareTips mostly...

Stay safe!

 

[acme]

My roommate and I did a 'Real Test' by going on some 'X' and 'XXX' sites to test WIN 8.1 with Windows Defender to see if we could make it out of the gauntlet of the evil viruses. Surprise - surprise, Win Defender got all the evil rascal's Ran Hitman Pro and Malwarebytes and neither one showed any left overs. We did this for 2 days and updated Win 8.1 every 2 or 3 hours while awake. We found about 36 malware/viruses.
We'll try again when we have more time.

 

[thepierrezou]

If you know what you do on you pc, Windows defender can be good as no antivirus (i joke but it's almost that)
If you have windows defender, your pc can be very slow.
For me windows defender is just not enough to protect a pc and we can find better antivirus

 

[NatsuruHaveALife :D]

Personal opinion from Natsuru; yes, with a second opinion scanner like mbam, emsisoft am, and using safe browsing habits, with Firefox add ons mentioned then you should be fine. Anymore av isn't too important as I check myself everything on PC and if I find viruses, I format/ reinstall anyway

 

[Infected]

Windows defender is terrible... never use MSE if you aren't an extremely cautious safe-minded surfer... it will alllow lots if unwanted stuff onto your computer... maybe not always bad, bad, but still

 

[WinXPert]

it's still better then no anti-virus I guess?

Nope, what's the use of an AV that detects a few malwares every boot time. It means i can't get rid of that. Based on personal experience, I disinfected a PC running Windows 7 with a few trojan. What I did is replaced MSE/WD with Avira. Trojan removed in seconds. No more nagging that you have a trojan every boot time.

 

[jamescv7]

IE SmartScreen + WD/MSE + knowledge should be pretty enough from what baseline means. If we are talking about default logic answer.

Like this:

A typical user download an unusual program using IE, then SmartScreen alerts that the file is unknown without enough infotmation (showing red mark), so he/she will take the operation not to download.

 

[russ0408]

I remember when MSE first came out. It had fantastic detection. Then all the major security companies started complaining because it was free, and the fact that Microsoft was getting involved with security now. Then as time passed the detection started slipping. I guess Microsoft gave into pressure and let the major companies look after the protection.

 

[Infected]

Fact is because Microsoft dominates the market with their Windows them charging you for extra security would give them this extremely bad image - the amount of hate they would receive... They wouldn't want that kind of bad publicity. Plus the other companies complaining because they are charging you thing.

 

[jamescv7]

Microsoft does not provide any pressure from their AV, but the only problem is their limit of action to improve more as they are in a way to compete from other products + Windows OS isn't a problem as they generate a lot of revenues from third party AV to install/partnership to register on Action Center.

 

[jackuars]

IE SmartScreen + WD/MSE + knowledge should be pretty enough from what baseline means. If we are talking about default logic answer.

Like this:

A typical user download an unusual program using IE, then SmartScreen alerts that the file is unknown without enough infotmation (showing red mark), so he/she will take the operation not to download.

But this also means less known but safe and good softwares gets the same treatment.