Microsoft Defender for Endpoint — Part 1

Why and how it makes a difference for protecting End-user devices.

Microsoft’s Advanced Endpoint security solution has been in Enterprise environments for more than 6 years nowadays.

The solution is a natural evolution from traditional endpoint security coming from “Windows Defender Antivirus”, historically embedded into Windows devices and part of Windows Enterprise E3 licensing bundle.

Microsoft’s Advanced Protection Origins

Microsoft released its enterprise-grade Ransomware protection, post-breach and Investigation-focused endpoint solution starting with the release of Windows Defender Advanced protection in 2016.

From the get-go, the solution has always focused on post-breach and robust investigative capabilities on Windows devices — with a cloud-based management dashboard.

Late in 2019, Microsoft renamed the solution to “Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection” to make it clear the solutions’ broader platform support, with MacOS and Linux starting to get support.

In 2020, it announced the most recent name change to this solution, which gave its current name, “Microsoft Defender for Endpoint” (which I often refer to as: “MDE”).