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MC355215: Microsoft Defender for Office 365: New default (URL click) alert policy

Updated May 17, 2022: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 offers many default alert policies. One of the current default alert policy, A potentially malicious URL click was detected, generates alerts when users click URLs (which are potentially malicious) in email messages. Currently, there are two scenarios that generate this alert. This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 93211.

we are enhancing the existing Microsoft Defender for Office 365 alert policy (A potentially malicious URL click was detected).

MC355215: Microsoft Defender for Office 365: New default (URL click) alert policy

  1. The URL verdict changes to bad after the user has already clicked it.
  2. A user clicks through (overrides the warning page) for a known, bad URL.

As part of the work to expand the scope of the alert for user clicks in workloads other than email (future roadmap), we’re splitting the existing alert policy based on those two scenarios.

The current alert policy ‘A potentially malicious URL click was detected’ will cover the ‘URL verdict change’ (# 1 above) scenario.

A new default alert policy named ‘A user clicked through to a potentially malicious URL’ will now cover the click through (# 2 above) scenario. The functionality in terms of alert generation, notification, AIR, and Incident correlation remain the same.

When this will happen

We expect this rollout to begin in early June (previously mid-May) and expect the rollout to be completed by late July (previously late June).

How this will affect your organization

This change should not have any effect on security and alert detection in your organization. You can review both default alerts in the portal. However, if you’re exporting these alerts into external systems, you’ll need to include the new alert generated by the new policy.

What you need to do to prepare

If you’re exporting these alerts to external systems for processing (via APIs), you will also need to set up the export of the new policy.

Learn more

Message ID: MC355215
Published: 09 April 2022
Updated: 17 May 2022

Alex Lim is a certified IT Technical Support Architect with over 15 years of experience in designing, implementing, and troubleshooting complex IT systems and networks. He has worked for leading IT companies, such as Microsoft, IBM, and Cisco, providing technical support and solutions to clients across various industries and sectors. Alex has a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the National University of Singapore and a master’s degree in information security from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also the author of several best-selling books on IT technical support, such as The IT Technical Support Handbook and Troubleshooting IT Systems and Networks. Alex lives in Bandar, Johore, Malaysia with his wife and two chilrdren. You can reach him at [email protected] or follow him on Website | Twitter | Facebook

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