In February, Microsoft announced that its Microsoft Defender antivirus, previously known as Windows Defender, would reach iOS, Linux and Android devices throughout this year.
And now, the new antivirus for Android from the Mountain View giant has been published on the Google Play Store.
Unfortunately, it can only be downloaded if you have a Microsoft 365 E5 license. Because this is still a “preview” version and, as the developer team is keen to point out, the app is reserved for corporate customers — which is a first step towards making it available to everyone in the coming months.
Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) is reported to help business users stay protected from cybersecurity threats such as malicious apps and malicious websites that may attempt to steal information from them. And it is also a platform that allows Security Operations teams to prevent, detect, and investigate cybersecurity incidents in the enterprise.
One of the key features of this new Microsoft Android antivirus is that it automatically warns users about malicious applications installed or copied to the device. It also automatically blocks malicious web pages and connections in the background, even allowing security administrators to create custom flags for web protections.
Just like Google Play Protect, Microsoft Defender analyzes all installed APKs and can also count on a built-in web filter (although it’s unclear how it works on Android).
At the moment, the application is not being very well received in the Google Play Store because it is not free, but it is expected that Microsoft will end up making its Microsoft Defender available to all mobile users in the coming months after these preview version.
