This kind of passive ransomware protection differs from that provided by our top paid pick, Sophos Home Premium, which actively looks for patterns of encryption that ransomware apps follow.

It received the highest possible detection scores from AV-TEST and AV Comparatives: 100 percent from AV-TEST for detection of macOS potentially unwanted applications (PUA), and above 99 percent for identifying Windows malware.

When I tested version 6.1 of this software, Bitdefender fared poorly against downloaded and decompressed macOS malware.

However, after that review, Bitdefender released version 6.2, which adds 200MB of free VPN service as part of the subscription price.

Bit Defender Antivirus Update Fixes One

An update fixes one of the bugs we found, the company says, and I confirmed that.

Accordingly, weve opted to review this updated version due to timing and the fix for a bug we found significant.

Bitdefender also provided more detail and a testing script for two file-protection features which are poorly explained within the app, and which were disabled by default at installation.

While the apps main screen warns about some security features being turned off, it still doesnt for these.

Update 01182019: The current 2019 version of Bitdefender adds support for macOS Mojave, but does not otherwise make significant changes that would affect this review or score.

Immediate improvements In our previous review of version 6.1, Bitdefenders anti-malware monitoring didnt stop me when I decompressed macOS malware from the Objective See archive, nor when I tried to launch it.

Bit Defender Antivirus Manual Custom Scan

A manual Custom Scan operation had to be performed to recognize the malware.

With version 6.2, however, as soon as I expanded the encrypted archive, Bitdefender instantly recognized the malware, moved it into quarantine, and displayed a notification about what had happened.

This behavior is what Id expect and marks a substantial improvement.

In both versions 6.1 and 6.2, the default setup doesnt activate the Safe Files feature, which provides passive ransomware protection.

You must dig into the softwares preferences and turn it on manually.

The company says an installation wizard should offer both Safe Files and the Time Machine protection option (which well discuss next) as optional features a user can enable.

Macworld.

You can add others, but ransomware typically targets only files created by users, as those require fewer permissions to modify.

Apples apps are all exempted from Safe Files automatic blocking, and theres no way (or, really, reason) to block them.

I tested an Apple-signed third-party app, Bare Boness BBEdit, and it was automatically approved and shown in the Safe Files apps list.

That approval behavior also cant be modified, but you can set Bitdefender to block third-party signed apps after their first attempt to access a protected folder.

You can also manually add and remove apps from the list and set them to approved or blocked.

All unsigned third-party apps are blocked by default.

However, I also tested a simple Terminal-based bash shell script, which uses a command-line ZIP compression tool, and the script and the ZIP compression and encryption werent stopped: macOSs Unix tools are signed by Apple.

Because the script wasnt known malware, it also wasnt blocked by the anti-virus database in Bitdefender.

Free Bit Defender Antivirus For Mac