Windows Defender Interferes with PostgreSQL on Windows 10

I am running a PostgreSQL database server on a Windows 10 host for development. I noticed that Windows Defender sometimes interferes with PostgreSQL and results the PostgreSQL services being terminated.

More specifically,  when you have a database transaction running and the Windows Defender starts to scan, the Windows Defender would label PostgreSQL transaction log as a threat as illustrated in the screenshot captured below. It shows that Windows Defender labels a PostgreSQL transaction log as a "Exploit:HTML/IframeRef", which is clearly a false alarm. Windows Defender would next quarantines the threat and the transaction log becomes inaccessible to the PostgreSQL service.

If you examine services in the Windows 10 host, you will see that the PostgreSQL service is terminated as illustrated in the screenshot below. At this time, any query to the PostgreSQL database results in failure.

The solution is to exclude the PostgreSQL transaction log directory from Windows Defender's scan. Microsoft explains how this can be done in this page.