Practitioner Level

Configuring Microsoft Defender SmartScreen with Group Policy

1 hour

3 Learning Objectives

You are working on securing your Windows Servers, and as part of the effort, you want to add protections against phishing and malware from websites, applications, and downloaded files. In this hands-on lab, you are going to create a Group Policy for a domain-joined virtual machine. The policy will enforce enabling SmartScreen on any domain-joined machine.

Learning Objectives

Successfully complete this lab by achieving the following learning objectives:

Configure the Active Directory Domain Services Environment

Confirm that the private IP address of the domain controller VM is set to Static
Install Active Directory Domain Services
- Download the installadds PowerShell script from the GitHub repository
Create the Domain Admin user
- Download the domainadmin PowerShell script from the GitHub repository
Confirm that the DNS for the VM that will be joining the domain is set to the private IP of the domain controller VM
Join the VM to the domain
- Download the domainjoin PowerShell script from the GitHub repository

Configure Group Policy for SmartScreen

Create a Group Policy Object (GPO)
Set the Windows Defender SmartScreen policy to Enabled

Confirm SmartScreen Policy Has Been Applied

Update the Group Policy on the VM
Navigate to the SmartScreen settings in Windows Security
Confirm that the settings have been applied by the GPO

Additional Resources

Lab Prerequisites

You should be familiar with the following to use this hands-on lab:

Active Directory Domain Services
Group Policy
Windows Security

Lab Setup

This lab will require the use of an Active Directory domain, so the first thing that will need to be done will be to configure the domain. Because this environment will be set up on Azure Virtual Machines, there will be a few Azure-specific steps that will need to be taken and will be delineated in the lab objectives.

Lab Files

The lab files needed for configuring the Active Directory Domain Services environment can be accessed via the GitHub repository for this lab.

What are Hands-on Labs

Hands-on Labs are real environments created by industry experts to help you learn. These environments help you gain knowledge and experience, practice without compromising your system, test without risk, destroy without fear, and let you learn from your mistakes. Hands-on Labs: practice your skills before delivering in the real world.

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