High CPU Usage by Microsoft Defender (MsMpEng.exe) on Azure Windows Server 2019

Hi everyone,

I’ve been seeing consistent CPU spikes from MsMpEng.exe (Antimalware Service Executable) on several Windows Server 2019 Datacenter VMs hosted in Azure.

The usage reaches 100% for about 10–15 minutes daily, always around the same time.
No manual scans are scheduled, and limiting CPU usage with Set-MpPreference -ScanAvgCPULoadFactor didn’t help.

Could this be related to Defender’s cloud protection update cycle, or possibly a backend maintenance task from Defender for Cloud?

Is there a recommended way to throttle or schedule these background Defender tasks in production environments?

Appreciate any insights,
Luca