Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (MDE) Discovery Mode must enable Log4j2 detection.

Severity	Group ID	Group Title	Version	Rule ID	Date	STIG Version
medium	V-275996	SRG-APP-000279	MSDE-00-001350	SV-275996r1119726_rule	2025-07-15	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 detects devices with applications using the vulnerable Log4j2 library through unauthenticated probing. This option will also enable discovery using Server 2019+ onboarded devices.

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 detects devices with applications using the vulnerable Log4j2 library through unauthenticated probing. This option will also enable discovery using Server 2019+ onboarded devices.

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 >> Device Discovery >> Discovery setup (under Discovery setup). 2. Verify Standard discovery is selected and the slide bar for "Enable Log4j2 detection" is selected. If the slide bar for "Enable Log4j2 detection" is not selected, 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 >> Discovery setup (under Discovery setup). 2. Select Standard discovery. 3. Select the slide bar for "Enable Log4j2 detection".