Microsoft admitted recently that it was unable to fix a problem that kept cropping up on Windows 11 where Microsoft Defender would display a popup that reads “Local Security Authority Protection is Off” even when there were no problems at all and the feature was enabled.
When the issue was first reported near the end of March the company found a workaround for the issue while it worked on the security patch. Initially, Microsoft believed the patch on Tuesday would fix the problem, yet it persists for some users. In fact, some users think the new patch caused more bugs than it fixed.
Neowin forum members discovered that the problem was continuing and helped point it out. While Microsoft has stressed to its users to continue using the workaround, it can certainly be alarming for users when a security bug listed as being fixed pops back up, alongside new bugs.
The workaround is fairly simple. If you enable Local Security Authority (LSA) protection and then restart your device, you can dismiss warning notifications and other information and popups from a restart. While this doesn’t fix the problem, it can remove the annoying pop-ups from your computer.
It should also be said that the problem only happens for specific versions of the Microsoft Defender antivirus. The problem isn’t widespread, nor are there any actual security vulnerabilities associated with this issue that you should worry about.
“This issue affects only “Update for Microsoft Defender Antivirus antimalware platform – KB5007651 (Version 1.0.2302.21002)”. All other Windows updates released on March 14, 2023, for affected platforms (KB5023706 and KB5023698), do not cause this issue,” Microsoft said in its report on the issue.
Microsoft also no longer offers specific updates with these security issues, so make sure you’ve upgraded to the new versions of Microsoft Defender.