Protected Folder Access Blocked

Question

Hi all,

since around February/March this year, our cloud based staff keep receiving the "Protected Folder Access Blocked" message on their work laptops. All laptops are win 11 pro and there are no BYOD allowed. The external support company says something has changed in the security updates of the cloud which is causing it. Its driving staff mad. We are 100% cloud based, Entra network/Tenant, 365 (premium licences), and use BitDefender from the 365 premium licence.

Any help to stop this happening to all staff would be appreciated.

Many thanks

Amin

Answer 1

Hello Amin,

Hope this is resolved already. If not, here’s some guidance that should help.

The “Protected folder access blocked” notification is generated by Controlled Folder Access (CFA), which is part of Microsoft Defender Exploit Guard. You can confirm this on an affected device by going to Windows Security → Virus & threat protection → Ransomware protection and checking the status of Controlled folder access.

Centrally, this can be reviewed and managed from the Microsoft Defender portal → Endpoint security → Attack surface reduction → Controlled folder access, where CFA is configured as part of Attack Surface Reduction policies. Refer to: Set up or edit your controlled folder access policy in Microsoft Defender for Business - Microsoft …

Also, this can be applied via Intune, Configuration Manager, GPO or powershell. Refer to: Enable controlled folder access - Microsoft Defender for Endpoint | Microsoft Learn

If this behavior isn’t intended and is impacting users, allow the specific applications that are being blocked or disable the controlled folder access based on how it is configured. Please be aware that disabling it removes the restrictions and the end users can access all folders.

For more details, you can refer to the official documentation here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/defender-endpoint/controlled-folders

Hope this helps!

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