Microsoft Corp. announced the general availability of its Microsoft Threat Protection and Insider Risk Management platforms today, along with a version of its Defender antivirus software for Linux now and for Android and iOS later this year.

Microsoft Threat Protection, released as a public preview in December, offers an integrated solution built on the Microsoft 365 security suite. That includes Defender Advanced Threat Protection  for endpoints, Office 365 ATP for email and collaboration, Azure ATP for identity alerts and Microsoft Cloud App Security for software as a service applications.

The software giant said MTP provides built-in intelligence, automation and integration to coordinate protection, detection, response and prevention into a single solution.

Microsoft Defender ATP for Linux was also made available starting today for public review. Following in the footsteps of Apple Inc. users who obtained a macOS version in March, the Linux version supports servers running distributed versions of RHEL 7+, CentOS Linux 7+, Ubuntu 16 LTS, or higher LTS, SLES 12+, Debian 9+ and Oracle EL 7.

According to Bleeping Computer, administrators using the Microsoft Defender ATP endpoint client gain access to a command-line antivirus product that will feed any detected threats into the Microsoft Defender Security Center.

Although the coming of a Linux version was no surprise since it had mentioned by Microsoft in the past, the announcement of iOS and Android versions was a surprise.

Speaking to CNBC, Microsoft Corporate Vice President Rob Lefferts said that iOS and Android are “pretty safe, but pretty safe is not the same as safe… [but] malware does happen on those platforms.”

Lefferts explained that people can end up allowing malware on their devices by installing applications they find outside Google Play and that mobile devices can be subject to phishing as well. He added that Defender could help companies make employees less vulnerable to such attacks.

A timeline for when Microsoft would release the iOS and Android versions was not specified, although CNBC said it would be available later this year. Microsoft noted that it would “provide a preview of our investments in mobile threat defense with the work we’re doing to bring our solutions to Android and iOS” at the RSA Conference in San Francisco next week.

Photo: Microsoft