Defender Antivirus Path Exclusion

This guide will allow administrators to configure a directory path that will be excluded from Defender Antivirus interference.

Role Requirements

Procedure Scope: Administrators

Required Group Membership: Admin.Security

Handbook Reference

Package: Device Security

Domain: Antivirus Management

Modifies: Defender Antivirus Path Exclusions

Defender Antivirus Path Exclusion

1. Navigate to Antivirus – Intune, locate the Security Essentials Defender Exclusions configuration item.
   
2. Scroll down to Configuration Settings and select Edit.
   
3. Find the Excluded Paths line item and click the radio button to the right to Configured.
   
4. In the box below, enter the full path to the folder containing items that will not be under the scrutiny of Defender Antivirus. It is recommended that these are not commonly used locations – such as the downloads or documents folder – but instead locations used by approved custom applications. Along with this, it is highly discouraged to create a path that users are aware bypasses antivirus scanning. Paths included here should not be known to the user and used for application functionality only, if the user places a downloaded file in this known bypassed location that is malicious it could introduce risk to the system.
   
5. Click Review and Save on the next page, followed by Save. Rule changes propagate in less than 24 hours.