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What is Microsoft Defender
Microsoft Defender is an antivirus and anti-malware solution provided by Microsoft. It is available on all personal Windows machines, as it comes pre-installed with Windows, and is used as the primary antivirus/anti-malware application on all student laptops.
How will this benefit me?
Windows Defender will look at and analyze what processes your computer uses on a daily basis so that it can learn how you work and then detect if something is running that doesn't look right. It will watch your network traffic and intercept and automatically block or alert when it detects something unusual.
Will it slow my system down?
No, Defender uses a single, lightweight agent that just runs in the background. You will not see it and the impact on processing speed is negligible.
What kind of information does it see?
Defender does not gather any personal information. It only looks at machine processes and what they are doing. Defender is watching what happens in the background and what may abnormally try to connect to the Internet.
How will I know if it finds something?
If Defender prevents or blocks an action, there is usually no client alert, alerts will only show up in a central console that can be monitored by IT staff. If a problem does exist, someone from Information Technology may reach out to try and remediate a problem.
What do I need to do?
Nothing. No user intervention is necessary. Defender runs and updates itself silently in the background learning and reporting as necessary back to its console for review.