Microsoft Defender ATP now protects also macOS

Microsoft has announced the availability of Defender ATP Endpoint Security for Apple macOS

Microsoft has announced the availability of Microsoft 365 advanced endpoint security solution across platforms, with the support of Apple Mac it added to Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP).

Microsoft Windows Defender ATP was first introduced in 2016 as a defensive solution for Windows 10, now the tech giant introduced a version for Apple Mac and changed its name to Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (instead of Windows Defender because it supports also Mac).

In 2018, Microsoft launched versions for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1.

Microsoft Defender ATP supports macOS Mojave, macOS High Sierra, and macOS Sierra.

Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) is now available for Mac in a limited public preview that anyway allows users to review and perform configuration of their protection, run scans, review detected threats, and manage detected threats (quarantine, remove, or allow).

“For us, it’s all about experiences that follow the person and help the individual be more productive,” Jared Spataro, Microsoft’s corporate VP for Office and Windows, told me. “Just like we did with Office back in the day — that was a big move for us to move it off of Windows-only — but it was absolutely the right thing. So that’s where we’re headed.”
“We’re just headed in that same direction of saying that it’s our intent that we can secure every endpoint so that this Microsoft 365 experience is not just Windows-centric,”

Administrators can disable/enable real-time protection, cloud-delivered protection, and automatic sample submission, and manage other features by using the Microsoft Intune or other Mac management consoles.

“Machines with alerts and detections will be surfaced in the Microsoft Defender ATP portal, including rich context and alert process trees. Security analysts and admins can review these alerts just as they can do today – except they’ll also see detections on Mac devices,” reads the post published by Microsoft.

In addition to the launch of the Microsoft Defender ATP, the tech giant also presented new threat and vulnerability management capabilities for its service.

“Threat & Vulnerability Management (TVM) serves as an infrastructure for reducing organizational exposure, hardening endpoint surface area, and increasing organizational resilience. Furthermore, it bridges security stakeholders—security administrators, security operations, and IT administrators—by allowing them to collaborate and seamlessly remediate threats,” Microsoft says.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – Microsoft Defender ATP, Windows)

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Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.