Microsoft Fixes Bug Behind 'Defender Antivirus Turned Off' Alerts
Microsoft has fixed a bug that caused incorrect alerts warning users that their Defender Antivirus was turned off after installing recent updates. The issue, which affected all supported Windows client and server versions, including the latest Windows 11 26H1 and Windows Server 2022 releases, triggered erroneous alerts in the Windows Security app.
The bug was identified as early as June in the Release Preview Channel of the Windows Insider program, but Microsoft only acknowledged it in late August. The company released a fix for the issue on September 17 with the Microsoft Defender Antivirus update (version 4.18.26080.4).
This is not the first time Microsoft has asked users to ignore incorrect errors and alerts displayed on their systems after installing updates.