Aside from fresh Windows setup and recovery updates, Microsoft has also provided a new Defender update for Windows 11/10/Server installation images this week. This update package is important, as a Windows installation image may contain old, outdated anti-malware definitions and program binaries. Aside from better security, these updates might also give improved performance benefits in some circumstances.
When a fresh Windows installation is set up, there may be a temporary security risk owing to outdated Microsoft Defender protection in the OS installation images. This arises because the antimalware software included in these pictures could not be up-to-date. Thus Microsoft believes that these new definitions essentially assist in closing this protection gap.
Microsoft supplied the latest security definitions for Windows images via security intelligence update version 1.431.54.0. The Defender packaging version is likewise the same.
It applies to Windows 11, Windows 10 (Enterprise, Pro, and Home editions), Windows Server 2022, Windows Server 2019, and Windows Server 2016
From Microsoft's security bulletin, we discover that the security intelligence update version 1.431.452.0, which was released this past week, provides threat detections for different backdoor and phishing exploits, trojans, and more. For anyone interested, the latest intelligence upgrade is version 1.431.155.0 at the time of writing.