One of the most common yet effective online scams is phishing. Thankfully, Windows Defender can protect you from phishing attacks quite effectively.
In case you don’t know, phishing is a social engineering scam where criminals try to trick you into giving away your passwords, credit card numbers, etc., via convincing-looking fake web pages and emails. For example, you might receive an email that looks like it’s from your bank, asking you to “verify” your account details. Or you could get a text message claiming to be from a delivery service, saying you need to pay a small fee or say the OTP to receive a package. Another common tactic is a pop-up appearing on your computer, warning about a virus and urging you to call a number for immediate “tech support”.
If you follow these deceptive links, enter your information, say the OTP, or call the provided numbers, the attacker can capture your details and use them for fraudulent activities and even steal your identity.
What makes phishing attacks so dangerous is that they are often so hard to detect. This is especially true of regular users who are not versed in computer & internet security. To make sure you won’t fall for these kinds of scams, Windows Defender has built-in phishing protection. In this quick and easy tutorial, I will show you the steps to enable phishing protection in Windows 11 and Windows 10 to better protect yourselves from online scams. Let’s get started.
Before You Begin
- You need admin rights to enable phishing protection in Windows.
- The steps given below are tested to work on Windows 11 and Windows 10.
- Windows Defender is called Windows Security in recent Windows versions.
Enable Phishing Protection in Windows Defender (Windows Security)
- Open the Start menu by clicking the Start button.
- Enter “Windows Security” in the search bar and click “Open“.
- Click the “App & browser control” option.
- Click the “Reputation-based protection settings” option.
- Turn ON the “Phishing protection” toggle.
- Close the Windows Security app.
- Restart your computer.
- With that, phishing protection is enabled in Windows.
Detailed Steps (With Screenshots)
First, open the Windows Security app. You can do that by opening the Start menu, searching for “Windows Security” and clicking the “Open” option.
Once the app opens, click the “App & browser control” option on the right page or on the left sidebar.
On this page, scroll down to the “Reputation-based protection” section and click the “Reputation-based protection settings” option under it.
Now, scroll down and turn ON the “Phishing protection” toggle. Click the “Yes” button when you see the UAC prompt.
Optionally, select the following checkboxes under the “Phishing protection” section.
- Warn me about malicious apps and sites
- Warn me about password reuse
- Warn me about unsafe password storage
Once you are done, close the Windows Security app by clicking the “X” button on the title bar. Next, restart your computer. After restarting, you are protected from phishing attacks.
Wrapping Up — Protecting Yourself From Phishing Attacks Using Windows Defender (Windows Security)
As you can see, thanks to the Windows Security app, enabling phishing protection is fairly easy in Windows 10 and Windows 11. Do keep in mind that while enabling this option provides system-wide protection, it is not guaranteed to work on all browsers. For example, it surely works in the Microsoft Edge browser. However, it’s not guaranteed on other browsers. To make sure it works, I recommend you install the Microsoft Defender Browser Protection extension/add-on if you are using Chrome (and any other Chromium/Chrome based browsers like Brave, Opera, etc.) or Firefox.
Also, while Windows phishing protection works greatly, it is not a substitute for being vigilant. Only visit trusted websites, don’t follow suspicious links or call unknown numbers, never share OTPs, and never enter your authentication details and other sensitive information unless it is required and you are doubly sure of the website you are in.
If you have any questions or need help, comment below. I’ll be happy to assist.
