Scanning Network Files should be enabled

Contributed by Boris Drogja with Olugbenro OgundipeAll contributors →

Part of Maester · Defender · Endpoint antivirus · All checks

Run this check

Invoke-Maester -TestId MT.1156

Overview

Verify that scanning network files is enabled despite SMB load considerations.

Disabled network file scanning creates attack vectors through shared files.

Remediation action:

1. Open Microsoft Endpoint Manager > Endpoint Security > Antivirus
2. Edit the relevant Microsoft Defender Antivirus policy
3. Enable Allow Scanning Network Files

If your antivirus settings are split across several policies, this setting only needs to be set in one of them, as long as that policy is assigned to every device that needs it. No other assigned policy should set a different value: Intune does not merge this setting, so a device that receives both values may end up with either one, or none.

Related links

• Policy merge and conflicts for Antivirus policy settings
• Configure Microsoft Defender Antivirus
• Microsoft Endpoint Manager

Details

Every attribute of this check

Field	Value
Test ID	MT.1156
Severity	Medium
Suite	Maester
Product	Defender
Related products	Intune
Feature	Endpoint antivirus
Area	Devices and endpoints
Resource type	Policy
User impact	Low
Implementation cost	Low
MITRE ATT&CK	T1080 Taint Shared Content
Supports controls	nist-800-53-r5:SI-3
PowerShell test	Test-MtMdeNetworkFileScanning
Services	Graph

Source

• Test: tests/maester/defender/Test.MT.1156.ps1
• Documentation: tests/maester/defender/Test.MT.1156.md