Antivirus Policy Management Preview Now Available in Microsoft Endpoint Manager 2006 -- Redmondmag.com

Antivirus Policy Management Preview Now Available in Microsoft Endpoint Manager 2006

By Kurt Mackie
09/01/2020

Microsoft last week announced a preview of using Microsoft Endpoint Manager (MEM) with update 2006 to manage Microsoft Defender Antivirus policies.

Those policies can now be set using the endpoint security node of MEM, the announcement explained. The preview will work across "cloud-born MDM devices, Intune + ConfigMgr co-managed devices and ConfigMgr only clients," it added.

MEM is a solution that combines the former System Center Configuration Manager (also known as "ConfigMgr" or "SCCM") product with the Microsoft Intune mobile management solution. MEM can now manage Microsoft Defender Antivirus policies at the preview stage if organizations have enabled a "tenant attach" capability. Microsoft had introduced tenant attach back in April with the release of SCCM update 2002.

Microsoft never really explained what tenant attach is, but it's different from "comanagement," according to Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Vimal Das. He explained in this April blog post that comanagement enrolls the SCCM agent with Intune, whereas no such enrollment occurs with tenant attach. Instead, SCCM-managed clients get synchronized to Intune with tenant attach.

IT pros wanting to manage Microsoft Defender Antivirus from MEM need to first enable tenant attach and then synchronize device collections using the MEM admin center, as described in this Microsoft document. The document includes a tip stating that it's possible to enable tenant attach using the Co-management Configuration Wizard in the MEM console "but you don't need to enable co-management."

The next step is to create a policy for Windows Defender Antivirus use from the MEM admin center console, applying it to a collection of devices. When all of this setup work is done, users will then see compliance reports in graphic format in "both Configuration Manager and the MEM console," Microsoft's announcement explained.

About the Author

Kurt Mackie is senior news producer for 1105 Media's Converge360 group.

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