Hi,

I hope some of you can also confirm that in the past 3-4 days, I have been seeing a system tray notification pop up soon after power up that Windows Defender is turned off even if you have not messed with it. Seems to be related to a recent Windows update.

If you go into the Security settings, I find everything (virus protection, firewall etc) is still enabled so this looks like a false- positive in the warning being generated.

Looks like this is a known issue with no fix yet.: https://www.windowslatest.com/2026/08/30/windows-11-is-warning-virus-protection-is-off-but-microsoft-confirms-its-false/.

I guess we have to wait for Microsoft to fix it! 🙄

I had this, and like you, I found out that it's a known issue. It freaked me out the first time, but now I just have a quick look to ensure it's runnning and then go on about my business. 😀

3 hours ago, JRMurray said:

I had this, and like you, I found out that it's a known issue. It freaked me out the first time, but now I just have a quick look to ensure it's runnning and then go on about my business. 😀

Exactly. At first I thought I was unprotected but then when the individual settings all looked good I started searching for the symptoms on the web.

I now also see the same problem on my work PC this week.

Just a quick update.

The advice from MS is to check but if everything is still enabled then wait for the MS fix to appear that fixes the fake Defender warning. Date TBD.

Apparently a new Security /Defender package is available and being tested in the MS preview channel but its not officially released yet.

Info as follows from the Windowsforum.com

"There are reports from administrators testing newer 4.18.26080.4 packages in staged or preview channels, but Microsoft’s public Security Intelligence page still listed 4.18.26080.3 as the current platform version on September 17. That means 4.18.26080.4 should not yet be treated as a confirmed broad-release fix. A preview or staged package may be relevant to managed testing, but it is not a reason to manually force unverified Defender builds onto production endpoints."

EDIT: Strangely enough ; I saw a new Windows 11 Security update (KB5129195) come this morning but I checked and this update does not solve the fake Defender warning. So fix/release is still pending from Microsoft.