Ed Bott - Windows 10 Support Secrets

47 CHAPTER 3 | Staying secure Figure 3-11: This screenshot shows Windows Defender with the History tab selected and a single detected item rated Severe, with options to Remove All, Remove, or Restore. Microsoft’s enterprise antivirus software uses the same scanning engine and signature files. If your organization uses third-party security software, Windows Defender steps quietly into the background. Windows SmartScreen The SmartScreen feature, which has been available in all modern versions of Windows, uses a reputation-based system to protect you from malicious websites (including so-called phishing sites that impersonate a legitimate website with the intent of fooling visitors into typing their account credentials) and also to check the safety of executable files you download from the web. Originally, SmartScreen was a feature found exclusively in Internet Explorer. With Windows 10, its area of coverage is expanded to include all downloads, regardless of how they arrive. The best way to demonstrate how SmartScreen works is to use Microsoft’s official test page at http://demo.smartscreen.msft.net . Figure 3-12 shows a few of the links you can click at this page, with each one triggering the same warnings you would see if you had visited an actual malicious site.