Microsoft Defender On Windows 11 Got Into AV-Test

For a long time, Microsoft had a rather ambivalent relationship with the security institute AV-Test. Because Microsoft’s Defender, i.e. the security software integrated into Windows, got off badly for many years. That has changed recently, but now you are back at the bottom.

AV-Test regularly publishes analyzes of the individual antivirus programs that are available on the market and also takes a close look at Microsoft’s Defender as part of these tests. In recent years, the Windows internal software has not had the slightest problem passing the tests of the security researchers from Magdeburg, usually with top marks.

Specifically, this affected the Defender of Windows 10. AV-Test has now taken on the Windows 11 version for the first time and this is a rather unusual trend reversal: Because in the latest overview, the Defender – together with PC Matic – occupies 16 out of 18 possible points last place.

Rating Going Down

The main reason for the bad rating is the performance, here the Defender only gets 4.5 out of a maximum of six possible points. If you look at the result in detail, you will notice that the slow copying speed (files locally and in the network) is responsible for the poor performance. Because AV-Test sees a drop of 53 to 63 percent here – the industry average is just five percent.

This is somewhat unusual, because there were and are no comparable problems under Windows 10 . So the verdict of the security institute seems to be more of a general Windows 11 problem (possibly even related to a bug) and is not one that endangers the security of the system. Because in the core discipline of an antivirus program, i.e. security, the Defender scores 5.5 out of six points. In the usability, there is then finally the full number of points.