Disable or Modify Windows Defender
This detection watches the commandline logs for known commands that are used to disable the Defender AV. This is based on research performed by @olafhartong on a large sample of malware for varying purposes. Note…
Description
This detection watches the commandline logs for known commands that are used to disable the Defender AV. This is based on research performed by @olafhartong on a large sample of malware for varying purposes. Note that this detection is imperfect and is only meant to serve as basis for building a more resilient detection rule. Make the detection more resilient, currently the order of parameters matters. You don't want that for a production rule. See blogpost (https://medium.com/falconforce/falconfriday-av-manipulation-0xff0e-67ed4387f9ab?source=friends_link&sk=3c7c499797bbb4d74879e102ef3ecf8f) for more resilience considerations. The current approach can easily be bypassed by not using the powershell.exe executable. Consider adding more ways to detect this behavior.
Detection logic
Detection requirements
- Platform
- ContainersIaaSLinuxmacOSNetwork DevicesWindows
The rule states no platform. This is derived from the ATT&CK technique it maps to.
- Log source product
- microsoftthreatprotection
- Log source service
- deviceprocessevents
MITRE ATT&CK mappings
0 exclusive techniques.This is coverage no other published rule has; it is not this rule's total technique count.
No references are available for this detection.
From the source
- At source
- Open at source
- Upstream identifier
- 20d52a04-b5d8-402d-88e2-7929d12cbdcd
- Tagged by the source as
- DefenseEvasion
Licence
- Published under
- MIT LicenseRead the licence
- Attribution
- Required
- Obtained under
- MITRead the origin licence
Authorship
- Published
- Sep 1, 2026
- Version
- 1