Microsoft Rolls Out Defender for Endpoint Tamper Protection for macOS

Microsoft says its Defender for Endpoint tamper protection feature for macOS is now generally available and will be rolling out over the next few days.

According to Microsoft, tamper protection brings an added layer of protection in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint that enhances the endpoint security posture of organizations.

The feature will be released with audit mode enabled by default, and admins can decide whether to enforce or turn off the capability, Microsoft says in a Tech Community blog.

In audit mode, admins will see these events logged:

• Actions to uninstall Defender for Endpoint agent
• Deletion/renaming/modification of Defender for Endpoint files
• The creation of new files under Defender for Endpoint installation locations

While in Audit mode, TP signals can be viewed via Advanced Hunting and in local on-device logs, the company says. No tampering alerts are raised in the Security Center while in Audit model, and alerts are raised in the portal only in block mode.

Here’s more from Microsoft’s blog about how to observe tampering events in the portal:

To observe tampering events in the portal, you can use the following query in Advanced Hunting:

DeviceInfo
| where OSPlatform == ‘macOS’
| join kind=rightsemi (
DeviceEvents
| where ActionType contains “TamperingAttempt”
) on DeviceId

If you want to check the status of the feature on a single device, you can run the command “mdatp health”. Look for the tamper_protection field, it will display “audit”, “block” or “disabled” according to your configuration.

The logs can also be found locally on the device. Tampering events are logged in: “Library/Logs/Microsoft/mdatp/microsoft_defender_core*.log”

Admins can leverage the audit mode to get familiar with how the feature detections possible tampering actions.

Microsoft says it will offer a gradual rollout mechanism that will automatically switch endpoints to block mode if organizations have not specifically made a choice to enable or disable the capability.

Block mode will both log the suspected tampering action and block it, along with a corresponding alert in the security center portal, the company says.

Learn more from this documentation.

If you enjoyed this article and want to receive more valuable industry content like this, click here to sign up for our digital newsletters!