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Address false positives or false negatives in Microsoft Defender XDR

Important

As of September 1, 2026, automated Investigation and Response (AIR) will no longer run as a separate investigation experience or be available for manual triggering in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint alerts and remediations.

  • AIR detection and response capabilities for Defender for Endpoint are already included in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint's default antivirus protection stack and run automatically. For on-demand investigations, run a full antivirus scan as needed.
  • This change applies only to Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. AIR capabilities for Defender for Office 365 remain available.

False positives or negatives can occasionally occur with any threat protection solution. If automated investigation and response capabilities in Microsoft Defender XDR missed or wrongly detected something, there are steps your security operations team can take:

The following sections describe how to perform these tasks.

Report a false positive/negative to Microsoft for analysis

Use the following table to determine where to submit false positives or false negatives for analysis.

Item missed or wrongly detected Service What to do
- Email message
- Email attachment
- URL in an email message
- URL in an Office file
Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Submit suspected spam, phish, URLs, and files to Microsoft for scanning
File or app on a device Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Submit a file to Microsoft for malware analysis

Adjust an alert to prevent false positives from recurring

Use the following table to choose the appropriate method for preventing similar false positives from recurring.

Scenario Service What to do
- An alert is triggered by legitimate use
- An alert is inaccurate
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps
or
Azure threat protection
Manage alerts in Defender for Cloud Apps
A file, IP address, URL, or domain is treated as malware on a device, even though it's safe Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Create a custom indicator with an "Allow" action

Undo a remediation action that was taken on a device

If a remediation action was taken on an entity (such as a device or an email message) and the affected entity is not actually a threat, your security operations team can undo the remediation action in the Action center.

  1. Go to Microsoft Defender portal and sign in.
  2. In the navigation pane, choose Action center.
  3. On the History tab, select an action that you want to undo. Its flyout pane opens.
  4. In the flyout pane, select Undo.

Tip

Do you want to learn more? Engage with the Microsoft Security community in our Tech Community: Microsoft Defender XDR Tech Community.