Defender Web Filter Policy Modification

This guide will provide background information on modifying an existing web filter set.

Web Content Filtering

Web content filtering enables your security team to track and regulate access to websites based on content categories. When you set up your web content filtering policy, you enable web protection for your organization.

Web content filtering is available on the major web browsers, with blocks performed by Windows Defender SmartScreen (Microsoft Edge) and Network Protection (Chrome, Firefox, Brave, and Opera).

Categories for web content filtering

Not all websites in these categories are malicious, but they could be problematic for your company because of compliance regulations, bandwidth usage, or other concerns. You can create an audit-only policy to get a better understanding of whether your security team should block any website categories.

The following table describes web content categories you can choose for your web content filtering policy:

Role Requirements

Procedure Scope: Administrators

Required Group Membership: Admin.Security

Handbook Reference

Package: TBD

Domain: TBD

Modifies: TBD

Modifying a Defender Web Filter Policy

1. Navigate to the Web Content Filtering – Microsoft Defender portal, locate the policy you wish to alter. When selected configured settings for the policy will be displayed, select Edit to start the modification process.
   
2. Upon opening the policy, all the information of the policy will be displayed. Only one setting will be available to You can modify the section as needed.
   1. General: Showcases the name of the policy; this setting cannot be changed since one web filter exists for all machines in the environment.
      
   2. Blocked Categories: Specifies what categories of web traffic will be blocked or allowed based on configuration; this can be altered to either enforce more restrictions or create allowances on certain web traffic types.
      
   3. Scope: Specifies which machines this web filter will apply to; currently this policy can only be enforced to all machines not individual groups.
      
   4. Summary: Displays all of the configured settings before saving modifications. Once you have created the necessary modifications to the policy, select Submit to finalize the modification process.