If the AV software was to be compromised and malware was activated, such malware could potentially run with impunity, granting the attacker access right across the system. For one thing, because they comprise multiple internal components necessary for examining such a wide range of data and file types, AV subsystems offer up a large attack surface. There’s a flipside to all of this access-all-areas capability.All of this demands the highest level of privilege. To do its job properly, the software must be able to read all files on disk, inspect all streams of data in memory – and to monitor events in real time. By its nature, AV needs to have high level permissions to enable unfettered systems access.Antivirus software: Who’s guarding the guards?Īntivirus software: Who’s guarding the guards?.I created some fresh Win10 VM’s with Defender and did not see the CP.exe tailing process name. So the question is, has Microsoft now built this into the operating system by default? You can also run CMD.exe followed by the SET command by itself to see if the environment variable is present: How can I tell if Defender is running itself in a Sandbox? Check task scheduler and if you see “CP.exe” This feature is enabled with a machine-wide environment variable (setx /M MP_FORCE_USE_SANDBOX 1) and then restarting the machine (System requirement: Windows 10, version 1703 or later) Running Windows Defender Antivirus in a sandbox ensures that in the unlikely event that Defender itself has vulnerabilities and becomes compromised, malicious actions are limited to the isolated environment, protecting the rest of the system from harm, since Defender runs with such high system privileges.

I had read reports that 30% of all malware targeted security software since it runs with such high privileges, so this was and is a very big deal. This was a big deal at the time it was announced, because Defender was the first Antivirus product to run *itself* in a sandbox. We all know Defender can detonate files in a cloud sandbox – but we are talking about Defender running * itself* (MSMPENG.EXE) inside a sandbox. He was referring to a breakthrough feature first announced ( here) two years ago () A colleague asked me today “Does Microsoft Defender run itself in a sandbox by default, or does that need to be manually enabled?”

Windows defender sandbox