Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (MDE) must enable Web content filtering.

Severity	Group ID	Group Title	Version	Rule ID	Date	STIG Version
medium	V-275986	SRG-APP-000279	MSDE-00-000850	SV-275986r1119716_rule	2025-11-25	1

Description
Malicious code protection mechanisms include, but are not limited to, antivirus and malware detection software. To minimize potential negative impact to the organization that can be caused by malicious code, it is imperative that malicious code is identified and eradicated. This setting blocks access to websites containing unwanted content and tracks web activity across all domains. To specify the web content categories to be blocked, a web content filtering policy must be created. Network protection must be set to block mode when deploying the Microsoft Defender for Endpoint security baseline.

Description

Malicious code protection mechanisms include, but are not limited to, antivirus and malware detection software. To minimize potential negative impact to the organization that can be caused by malicious code, it is imperative that malicious code is identified and eradicated. This setting blocks access to websites containing unwanted content and tracks web activity across all domains. To specify the web content categories to be blocked, a web content filtering policy must be created. Network protection must be set to block mode when deploying the Microsoft Defender for Endpoint security baseline.

ℹ️ Check
Access the MDE portal as a user with at least an MDE Administrator or equivalent role: 1. In the navigation pane, select Settings >> Endpoints >> Advanced features (under General). 2. Verify the slide bar for "Web content filtering" is set to "On". If the slide bar for "Web content filtering" is not set to "On", this is a finding.

✔️ Fix
Access the MDE portal as a user with at least an MDE Administrator or equivalent role: 1. In the navigation pane, select Settings >> Endpoints >> Advanced features (under General). 2. Set the slide bar for "Web content filtering" to "On".