Conundrum around Network Protection Toast Notifications

-
 

Network protection utilizes functions in SmartScreen to block phishing activities from malicious command and control sites. When an end user attempts to visit a website in an environment in which network protection is enabled, a toast notification may be presented based on the reputation of the URL.

What if you don't want to give the user the ability to circumvent the blocked action at all? This is where the challenge lies, but luckily there is a way. First, let's look at the scenarios under which NP operates.

1. The URL has a known good reputation - In this case the user is permitted access without obstruction, and there's no toast notification presented on the endpoint. In effect, the domain or URL is set to Allowed.

2. The URL has an unknown or uncertain reputation - The user's access is blocked, but with the ability to circumvent (unblock) the block. In effect, the domain or url is set to Audit. The user will have access to the site for 24 hours; at which point the block is reenabled for another 24 hours. The user can continue to use Unblock to access the site until such time that the administrator prohibits (blocks) the site, thus removing the option to Unblock.

3. The URL has a known bad (malicious) reputation - The user is prevented from access. In effect, the domain or URL is set to Block and a toast notification will be presented to the user just for information.

One way to bypass the warning is by configuring the Unblock functionality in Defender for Endpoint Portal by the means of Allow or Block action. However, this can only work with Indicators of Compromise (IoC) rules and not practical as it will involve working against a defined list of URLs.


Therefore, the only other viable option is to configure the Windows Defender Toast notifications to disable additional notifications from being presented to the end user. If you are managing Windows devices using Intune, then this can be easily configured using the steps below -

2. Under Devices -> Endpoint security -> Antivirus -> Create profile.
3. Under Platform, select Windows 10, Windows 11, and Windows Server.
4. Select Profile as Windows Defender Security Experience -> Create
5. Give a name.
6. Configure as shown below.


Note: Disabling additional notifications will not disable critical notifications, such as threat detection and remediation alerts.

You also have the option of disabling it using Settings Catalog.



7. Once selected, assign to a group of devices or users as normal.

End Result

After the policy applies, non-critical toast notifications will be suppressed. A a new registry entry will be created for this configured policy.


Windows Defender Security Center notifications will show as managed.


Compliance shall update against the setting in Intune.


Until next time..

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to force escrowing of BitLocker recovery keys using Intune

-
Image
Every now and then it so happens that BitLocker recovery keys do not escrow in AAD. The usual culprits are incorrect BitLocker policies and\or the device hardware configuration failing to meet the minimum requirements. The other scenario and something I recently experienced is when everything is setup right and still the recovery key doesn’t escrow in AAD. As I understand, this can happen if the escrow process got interrupted the first time due to network or local devices related issues and the process could not resume. To circumvent this issue, one can simply push a PowerShell script to the devices to force the escrow of the recovery keys to AAD. Here is a script to do so. try{ $BitlockerVol = Get-BitLockerVolume -MountPoint $env:SystemDrive         $KPID=""         foreach($KP in $BitlockerVol.KeyProtector){             if($KP.KeyProtectorType -eq "RecoveryPassword"){              ...
Read more

Prevent users from running certain programs or applications on Windows endpoints using Intune

-
Image
  When it comes to blocking or preventing users from running an application on Windows devices, one normally uses App locker policy, Windows Defender Application Control and not so new but pretty useful method called Defender Vulnerability management within Microsoft 365 Defender Portal. A recent question on the Tech Community Microsoft forum prompted me to look for all possible alternatives. I started reminiscing over the legacy GPO policies and that is when I stumbled upon the policy  Don’t run specified Windows applications  located under User Administrative Templates - The policy setting does come with its own caveat - " This policy setting only prevents users from running programs that are started by the File Explorer process. It does not prevent users from running programs, such as Task Manager, which are started by the system process or by other processes. Also, if users have access to the command prompt (Cmd.exe), this policy setting does not prevent them from st...
Read more

Intune: Configure Printers for Non-Administrative Users

-
Image
Configuring printers for end users or giving them the ability to do it themselves is a normal requirement for organizations. Now if your users are Administrators, then the configuration can be straight forward, but in case of Non-Administrators there are additional steps required as Non-Administrators will not be able to add a driver in the driver store despite being able to install a printer. In this blog, I will cover the steps that I took to address this requirement using Intune. The setup involves 2 steps -  1. Setup registries. 2. Install the driver and configure the printer Setting up registries – The registries that need to be configured are actually part of a GPO setting – Allow non-administrators to install drivers for these device setup classes It can be found under: Computer Configuration -> Policies -> Administrative Templates -> System -> Driver Installation I used a Powershell script to set the values and wrapped it in a Win32 application. $P...
Read more