Microsoft has officially validated the workaround for the mayhem caused by Defender yesterday. The company has published a fix but has confirmed it can't restore the deleted shortcuts for you.
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Microsoft Defender goofed up again as system admins found it was deleting shortcuts on Windows 10 from the Start menu and Taskbar. The company acknowledged the issue and has now issued a fix.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint has done quite well in a new LSASS credentials dumping protection test recently conducted by AV-Comparatives. In the test, Defender has scored the full marks.