The security components of both Windows 10 and Windows 11 include a very important tool called Windows Defender Firewall.
In a nutshell, this firewall helps protect the PC from Internet-based attacks by blocking incoming traffic that could potentially pose a security risk.
The thing is, your PC’s firewall protection becomes useless if it happens to get turned off for some reason.
While there are legitimate reasons for temporarily disabling the firewall (for troubleshooting Internet and network issues, for instance), keeping it disabled will render your machine vulnerable to all manner of web-based threats.
For that reason, many virus and malware attacks that manage to slip through your PC’s defenses will surreptitiously disable the Windows Defender Firewall in order to make it easier for future malware attacks to succeed.
That’s why you need to double-check your PC’s firewall settings every time your antivirus program finds and removes malware from your system.
Luckily, this is very easy to do in both Windows 10 and Windows 11. Just follow the steps below for your version of Windows.
If your PC is running Windows 11:
1 – Right-click the Start button, then select Settings from the menu.
2 – In the left-hand pane, click Privacy & security.
3 – In the right-hand pane, click Windows Security.
4 – Also in the right-hand pane, click Firewall & network protection.
5 – You should now see entries for “Domain network”, “Private network” and “Public network”. Verify that the firewall is On for each of those three entries.
If one or more of those entries shows the firewall as being turned off, click on the entry and toggle the “Microsoft Defender Firewall” setting to On.
If your PC is running Windows 10:
1 – Right-click the Start button, then select Settings from the menu.
2 – Click Update & Security.
3 – In the left-hand pane, click Windows Security.
4 – In the right-hand pane, click Firewall & network protection.
5 – You should now see entries for “Domain network”, “Private network” and “Public network”. Verify that the firewall is On for each of those three entries.
If one or more of those entries shows the firewall as being turned off, click on the entry and toggle the “Microsoft Defender Firewall” setting to On.
That’s all there is to it. Once you have verified that your PC’s Windows Defender Firewall is turned on you can rest a little easier knowing the machine has this super-important security tool enabled.