A while ago, Microsoft changed her security solution Defender ATP (Advanced Thread Protection) from Windows Defender to Microsoft Defender. If you doubt that this move have some managing meaning, you would be correct. Earlier today, Microsoft announced that its anti-malware protection is becoming available for users of MacOS. This name change is not the first in the product’s history as it was first known as Microsoft Security Essentials. This new name change was for the purpose of making the software more broadly used for other operating systems. Starting in this case with Apple’s operating system MacOS, that is going with the name of “Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) for Mac”. Furthermore, Microsoft stated that the solution will be completed by “Threat and Vulnerability Management (TVM)” new capabilities to discover, prioritize, and remediate threats and vulnerabilities for all its users.

Like they stated in their official blog post, Microsoft developed their solution as a “next-gen” anti-virus. A statement that can not be criticized knowing the fact that early versions scored well among anti-virus testing outlets. For both its speed and its threat detection and lightweight, it’s safe to say that the solution offered is safe and trusted.

In addition to what TVM design to empower security teams to discover, prioritize, and remediate known vulnerabilities and misconfigurations exploited by threat actors, Defender ATP adds :

• Real-time detection insights correlated with endpoint vulnerabilities.
• Machine vulnerability context during incident investigations.
• Built-in remediation processes through integration with Microsoft Intune and Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager.

The product will be available as a public preview for Microsoft Defender ATP customers within the next month. More features will be added for customers during the preview. For example, the addition of “Endpoint detection and response”, as well as new TVM features.

For many decades, a preconception about Macs is that they didn’t need any virus or malware protection. While this may have been true in some points of time,  recent attacks and present-day malware’s complexity has shown that MacOS is vulnerable to attacks as Windows. A non-neglectable share of the recent big attacks victims was Macs. And it seems like Microsoft is well aware of this new need in the market, and worked on exploiting it very soon.

Finally, as attacks continue to rise in both volume and sophistication, critical cybersecurity defenders are more in need of new tools, capabilities, and advances in technology. A need that some giant companies such as Mircosoft committed to fulfilling.