Apple has been quietly souping up its malware protection all this time, covertly introducing a new anti-malware tool called “XProtect Remediator”.
Mac blogger Howard Oakley (opens in new tab), who first unearthered the feature, noted how macOS malware protection “has changed more than it did over the previous seven years” over the last six months.
“It has now gone fully pre-emptive, as active as many commercial anti-malware products,” he added.
What’s new?
Though Apple has been giving Mac users at least some level of malware protection via its XProtect tool since it released Mac OS X Snow Leopard back in 2008, the new tool, which was introduced in macOS 12.3 Monterey, takes a step forward in terms of proactivity.
XProtect Remediator frequently scans for malware in the background and fixes it when detected.
These scans occur at least once every day, though sometimes as frequently as every few hours, and tend to occur when the Mac is turned on but is not in active use.
The tool contains executable code modules that can find and remediate many types of common malware strains, including endemic trojan Adload, trojan dropper DubRobber, and the browser hijacker adware Genio.
Can I use this feature?
The new tool is available for users on macOS Monterey, macOS Big Sur, and macOS Catalina, but unfortunately not for users of previous iterations of ioS.
Apple certainly hasn’t slowed down in terms of rolling out security updates and recently patched two zero-day vulnerabilities that were being used in the wild with updates to macOS Monterey 12.5.1, iOS 15.6.1, and iPadOS 15.6.1.
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