Microsoft was gracious enough to bless macOS with its antivirus solution last year, but the company has even bigger plans for its threat protection platform. As part of an announcement regarding the public preview availability of Microsoft Defender Advanced Protection (ATP) for Linux, Microsoft revealed that it would also be bringing its antivirus to the world’s most popular mobile operating systems.
“Providing comprehensive protection across multiple platforms through a single solution and streamlined view is more important than ever,” said Moti Gindi, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft’s Threat Protection division. “Next week at the RSA Conference, we’ll provide a preview of our investments in mobile threat defense with the work we’re doing to bring our solutions to Android and iOS.”
Microsoft had nothing more to say about the mobile versions, but we can presume that they’ll bundle the ATP’s core features into an easy-to-use app. It should provide a strong line of defense against phishing attacks, as well as malware on app stores. (The Verge points out that iOS doesn’t actually let apps scan for malware, so it’ll be interesting to see how Microsoft gets around that limitation.)
Microsoft Defender (previously known as Windows Defender) has been around since the Windows XP days as a free, “better-than-nothing” solution, but the software has been gaining recognition in recent years as something that could stand up to industry staples such as Kaspersky and Norton.
AV-TEST, one of the leading independent security research institutes, gave Microsoft Defender a “Top Product” ranking in its Nov-Dec 2019 certification report. It earned a perfect score for protection against malware, scoring 100 percent for “detection of widespread and prevalent malware discovered in the last 4 weeks” and 99.1 percent for “protection against 0-day malware attacks, inclusive of web and e-mail threats.”