Windows Defender: does it scan email attachments

weggins · 15 Dec 2019

Hi, I'm a newbie to tenforums, but old with Windows since the 90's. Hope you can give me a definitive answer to this question.

I cannot find any evidence that WD has any interaction with email. In particular, you can no longer right-click on an email attachment to select "scan with ...".

I have Win 10 Home, 64bit, v1909, email is Outlook ver 14.0.7237 (32bit).

My Windows Security settings are currently:
Real-time protection ON
Cloud-delivered OFF
Tamper protection ON
Controlled Folder access OFF
Exclusions - None

Regards,
Wes

dmholt57 · 15 Dec 2019

Windows Defender Antivirus delivers comprehensive, ongoing and real-time protection against software threats like viruses, malware and spyware across email, apps, the cloud and the web.

jamis · 15 Dec 2019

It will be interesting to see the answer. I have Norton 360 and it does scan the e-mail attachments that come in via Windows Live Mail and the web based e-mail program from my ISP.

FreeBooter · 15 Dec 2019

Windows Defender scans any file stored on your hard drive email are located on your hard drive.

Why you don't need your anti-virus to scan your email - A Cloudeight Information
Avenune Tutorial

Steve C · 16 Dec 2019

Windows Defender email scanning can be controlled by an option in Group Policy. See these links:

Enable Defender Email Scanning?
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...antivirus#ref1

This option is only needed for older email programs as I understand the guidance from MS.

Porthos · 17 Dec 2019

FreeBooter said:

Windows Defender scans any file stored on your hard drive email are located on your hard drive.

Why you don't need your anti-virus to scan your email - A Cloudeight Information
Avenune Tutorial

Only if you use a program on the computer to use email. It does very little for WEB Mail unless you download an attachment.

Chrysalis · 28 Apr 2021

I have done some testing and defender is currently "not" scanning my email attachments in outlook from office 365, I tested with eicar email testing feature and with libraesva. It is however scanning web email attachments.