Defender Antivirus & ASR Exclusions
The question it answers: Which Defender Antivirus and attack surface reduction exclusions are configured, and which are broad or risky?
Every exclusion is a place malware can hide: an excluded folder is not scanned, an excluded process can do anything, an excluded extension is never inspected. Broad or user-writable exclusions - temp folders, user profiles, *.ps1, powershell.exe - are flagged. The ASR and firewall modes are in Endpoint Security Posture.
At a glance
Section titled “At a glance”| Where in the app | Intune › Device Operations & Hardening › Defender & ASR Exclusions |
| Workload | Intune |
| Kind | Findings list · dashboard tile |
| Data | Read from Microsoft 365 when someone first opens it, then kept for the report cache lifetime (Settings > Data & cache, 1 hour unless changed). |
| Licence | Microsoft Intune. |
| Report id (API and MCP) | intune.operations.defender-exclusions |
Columns
Section titled “Columns”| Column | Key | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Severity | Severity | Status |
| Exclusion type | Category | Text |
| Excluded item | Subject | Link |
| Check | Setting | Text |
| Policy | Value | Text |
| Finding | Finding | Text |
| Assignment | Detail | Text |
| Date | When | Date |
| Count | Number | Number |
A findings list hides columns that no row fills. Severity is Critical, Serious, Warning, OK or Info; rows rated Critical, Serious or Warning need attention (Working with findings).
What it needs
Section titled “What it needs”Licence: Microsoft Intune.
Application permissions on the IntensiveReports app registration (all permissions):
| Permission | API | What it allows | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
DeviceManagementConfiguration.Read.All | Microsoft Graph | Read Microsoft Intune device configuration and policies |
Data sources it reads
GET /beta/deviceManagement/configurationPolicies?$expand=settings,assignments
Through the API and MCP
Section titled “Through the API and MCP”GET /ir-api/v1/reports/intune.operations.defender-exclusions?size=100An AI assistant reads it with the MCP tool get_report and the id intune.operations.defender-exclusions. The client needs the Read grant for Intune. See Using the API.