Microsoft Defender for Linux
Microsoft wants to bring its antivirus software to Linux – but what kind of reception will it get?
Microsoft is looking to bring its Defender antivirus software to Linux devices in 2020. Once known as Windows Defender and shipped as default with Windows 10, in March 2019 Microsoft changed the name to drop the reference to Windows, while bringing the software to Mac. It is now looking to bring its software to Linux to help protect against malware and phishing attacks, perhaps not how you think.
It might seem like an odd move, but Defender has moved on from the feature-light free version aimed at protecting Windows users who don’t know they should have antivirus installed, and is now aimed at enterprise users as well. In October, an independent testing lab rated
Defender pretty highly, above the likes of Bitdefender, Kaspersky and Mcafee’s software. It’s also yet another example of Microsoft bringing what once was a Windows-exclusive feature or app to Linux (and other rival operating systems), in a notable shift from its Windows-centric way of doing things.
Zdnet also reports (http:// bit.ly/lxf258defender) that
Application Guard is coming to all Office 365 documents. This used to be an exclusive feature to Edge, the unloved browser from Microsoft (which is also coming to Linux, in its new Chromium-based guise), where online documents could be opened in a virtual machine, creating a sandbox to keep host devices protected from any viruses the documents might hold.
Rob Lefferts, corporate vice president for Microsoft’s M365 Security, also told Zdnet how the feature “is coming in preview first, but when you get an untrusted document with potentially malicious macros via email, it will open in a container.” He also explained how Microsoft is expected to block 14 billion malicious emails by the end of 2019.
While it might be tempting to scoff at Microsoft bringing its security software to Linux, it could turn out to be a real boon.