The capability of independent microgrid of resistant to fault disturbances is weaker because of the small response inertia and the existence of interaction coupling of the inverter-based microsources. The autonomous protection and control of microsources under fault conditions will become an important guarantee for the reliability of an independent microgrid. An autonomous protection and control strategy of inverter-based microsources introducing fault virtual impedance and its adaptive adjustment is proposed in this paper. When a symmetrical short-circuit fault occurs in an independent microgrid, the fault current impulse can be suppressed through the additional fault virtual impedance. Meanwhile, the fault virtual impedance can be adjusted self-adaptively according to change degree of the fault current, so the capabilities of fault-tolerance and autonomous recovery of microsource can be obtained. The simulation and experimental results are presented to verify the effectiveness of this control strategy.