Microsoft Defender Antivirus • Release: 7 Benchmark Date: 05 Jan 2026

CAT II V-278668 WNDF-AV-000064

Microsoft Defender AV must enable script scanning.

Documentable No
Rule ID SV-278668r1144063_rule
CCI References
CCI-001242

Always-on protection consists of real-time protection, behavior monitoring, and heuristics to identify malware based on known suspicious and malicious activities. These activities include events, such as processes making unusual changes to existing files, modifying or creating automatic startup registry keys and startup locations (also known as autostart extensibility points, or ASEPs), and other changes to the file system or file structure.

Check Procedure

Verify the policy value for Computer Configuration >> Administrative Templates >> Windows Components >> Microsoft Defender Antivirus >> Real-time Protection >> Turn on script scanning is set to "Enabled"; otherwise, this is a finding.

Procedure: Use the Windows Registry Editor to navigate to the following key: 
HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Real-Time Protection

Criteria: If the value "DisableScriptScanning" is REG_DWORD = 0, this is not a finding.

If the value is 1, this is a finding.

Fix Action

Set the policy value for Computer Configuration >> Administrative Templates >> Windows Components >> Microsoft Defender Antivirus >> Real-time Protection >> Turn on script scanning to "Enabled".

Click "OK".

Click "Apply".