macOS Threats Are Evolving. Bitdefender's Protection Should Too.

I've always appreciated the care Bitdefender puts into their consumer products, anyone can bring much of the security Bitdefender sells to businesses to their home, at this point, the Windows antivirus is a mature and complete product. I think you should allocate more resources to bringing the Mac counterpart to the same level, by implementing modern protection layers. If a user has Antivirus Plus, they get a fair level of security in return, but Internet Security and Total Security users receive nothing for macOS, as you only offer basic features, this is unlike the Windows version that has better protection at higher tiers.

To give other users on this forum an idea of what I’m talking about, this illustrates what AVs offer at each security layer, I wanted an image representative of Bitdefender’s but couldn’t find one as clear as these:

Your macOS product offers at best half of these solutions, I would love to see on-execution layer protection, as the only protected vector right now is pre-execution. This means that Bitdefender is only able to stop a threat with either a known hash, or a code snippet that's shared with known malware. Nowadays that's not how most important attacks are done: Polymorphic malware, fileless attacks, and exploits to name a few are unstoppable at the pre-execution layer, 10 years ago this wasn't something to worry about for Mac users, this is changing now as more sophisticated attacks show

Obviously, macOS has important differences from Windows, but a lot of what you already do Windows can be done here too, so I want to make the case for on-execution features, understandably, they need to be tailored for macOS so they might not be exactly the same as Windows, but you’ve already solved this for the macOS endpoint version of GravityZone, which has Advanced Threat Defense, so why compromise on the consumer version?

Apple officially has behavioral inspection natively in macOS as part of XProtect: https://eclecticlight.co/2024/06/28/what-do-xprotect-behaviourservice-and-bastion-rules-do/
And if you look at the changelogs, competitors like Kaspersky are adding these features on their macOS versions.

Honestly, Bitdefender being a company that's fully dedicated to cybersecurity lacking a whole type of detection that Apple has is strange, should be the opposite, imagine if Windows Defender had on-execution protection while Bitdefender only provided signature detection?

So, to sum it up, in 2026, there are no reasons why an antivirus shouldn’t have on-execution detection, especially considering Bitdefender is at the bigger leagues, it’s not a new company without enough experience.

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Comments

Gjoksi

Hello.

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with Bitdefender.

Following your post here, the suggestion has been automatically forwarded to the development teams for analysis.

Your contributions and ideas are always welcome and please feel free to share with Bitdefender any other suggestions that come to mind in the future.

Maybe @Alexandru_BD and/or @dvsls have some thoughts on this idea.

I voted up for the idea.

Regards.

_Iván_

+1 on this too, i had no idea the macos version relied on signatures!

i personally have a no-compromise mentality when it comes to third-party antivirus, if i buy one i expect all the bells and whistles, for only signature detection and folder permissions i stick with the os defaults

Flexx

As far as I know, Bitdefender enterprise products, like GravityZone, have all these features. Both Kaspersky and ESET data you shared above are related to enterprise solutions only. There is a difference between consumer products and enterprise products, with enterprise products needing more protection features than consumer-level products. Consumer products do not require the same level of protection as enterprise solutions.

I have been in regular contact with Bitdefender developers and malware researchers, but they consider some features important only for enterprise products, which consumer products do not need.

Maybe @Andrei_S Enterprise can provide some insights here.

Note: This post is quite confusing because you’re discussing consumer products while sharing images of enterprise products.

Regards

Flexx

To add here, below is the image of the Security Layers in Bitdefender enterprise products from Bitdefender enterprise website https://techzone.bitdefender.com/en/security-layers.html

and from https://www.bitdefender.co.th/xdr/?___store=en

and from https://techzone.bitdefender.com/en/security-layers/detection/sensors.html

and there are more.

Regards

Andrei_S Enterprise

Hello @SaurikSI ,

As I am part of the Enterprise Support, I can only comment about the Enterprise Solutions stack, so for macOS, you can check this article that provides a comparison at the endpoint level, per OS, on which features are available: https://www.bitdefender.com/business/support/en/77209-376324-features-by-asset-type.html .

The product is constantly being improved and new features are added based on customer's feedback and product management strategy, so if you consider that a feature that you need is missing on macOS, please submit a feature request to be evaluated: https://www.bitdefender.com/en-us/support/contact-us

Since the topic is very generic as @Flexx already shared you can find a lot of information on our TechZone page.

If you want to check on how Bitdefender(or any other security solution) stands I would advice to review the industry's major research and advisory players such as Gartner and Forrester: https://www.bitdefender.com/en-us/business/awards#list

Kind Regards,

Andrei

Pleonasm

FYI: See 2025 in Review for a related discussion.

SaurikSI

Hi everyone, I want to clarify the confusion the images caused.

This thread is a suggestion for your consumer product, Bitdefender for Mac, I mentioned GravityZone because since it already has Advanced Threat Defense, it wouldn’t be so hard to add that feature to the consumer version.

The images I shared are only so other users reading this understand what protection layers are, I don’t want to compare enterprise and consumer AVs. Even so, Kaspersky already added something similar to Advanced Threat Defense on their consumer version for macOS.

Bitdefender for Mac only detects malware based on signatures, not during execution, this has been the most important detection vector for a decade now, as the most damaging attacks don't have well-known signatures, which is why all AV vendors invest a lot in technology to analyze a program's behavior instead, as it's the only way to reliably detect them, it’s crucial that you add this, otherwise you’re making compromises at the expense of the security of your macOS home users, which shouldn’t be the case on a company with resources and reputation like Bitdefender.

Pleonasm

@Flexx, can you kindly describe a few examples of protection features that are needed for an enterprise but are not applicable for a consumer using macOS - and, explain why? (Thank you.)

Pleonasm

@Andrei_S Enterprise, what "product" are you referencing in your comment, "The product is constantly being improved and new features are added…"? If you are describing Antivirus for Mac, then can you please provide a few examples of recent improvements and new features? (Thank you.)

Pleonasm

Can a member of the Bitdefender team please confirm that the Antivirus for Mac product "…only detects malware based on signatures, not during execution"?

I see no evidence in the product documentation that the statement is false, but I am surprised that threats in real time are not detected by the product using behavioral heuristics and machine learning technologies.

Flexx

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/360321#Comment_360321

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/360334#Comment_360334

I will be crystal clear here: there are no Bitdefender staff on the Bitdefender Community Forum who deal with or are related to Bitdefender product for Mac. So, if you are thinking you will receive a response from other Bitdefender staff, that may or may not happen.

The Bitdefender Community Forum only has Bitdefender staff available for Bitdefender Windows product development, Bitdefender SecurePass development, Bitdefender VPN support, and Bitdefender enterprise support.

Nevertheless, we do have Bitdefender Product QA Manager @dvsls, who might be able to help you with your query.

Otherwise, the best option is to contact Bitdefender Support, because they have up-to-date information related to different Bitdefender products. If they do not have the required information, they get in touch with Bitdefender developers to obtain it.

Kindly contact Bitdefender support by visiting https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/help/

Select, How to's & Troubleshooting Bitdefender products→Troubleshooting→I don't know→Contact Support→ You will get the option of chat, call or email.

To get an immediate update, make use of the chat option. Once the AI chatbot recommends a series of solutions, you can type in the chat, 'transfer to an agent,' and you will be transferred to a Bitdefender support agent. Also, ensure that no ad blockers or privacy extensions are enabled in your web browser, as they may prevent the chat window from appearing.

Regards

xerewoma11

Exactly, Antivirus for Mac seems to be the "forgotten product" basically, it's obvious when you look at the changelogs

SaurikSI

@Pleonasm Unfortunately this is not what you're looking for, I don't work at Bitdefender, but this is sadly the case.

I decided to go through the hassle of writing this post after confirming this myself, I'm not sharing the methodology because doing so would make it harder to test if the antivirus is actually just checking for signatures or not.

You can also confirm this by looking at the feature list, I know it's hard to believe that an antivirus in 2026 doesn't have behavioral detection, but Advanced Threat Defense, which is their feature to detect unknown malware, is ONLY available on their enterprise version for macOS. Why? Who knows, but I do know that HAS to change.

SaurikSI

The only feature on Bitdefender for Mac that provides more "dynamic" protection is Safe Files, but:
A: That's redundant as macOS already requires authorization for an app to read and modify files.

B: Even if it doesn't rely on signatures to work, this ONLY protects against ransomware, my concern behind this thread is about unknown malware in general. So in simple terms, if a malware whose signature is unknown tries to modify system settings, or starts capturing your keystrokes, or anything in this nature, Bitdefender for Mac won't do anything to protect you.

Apple's XProtect Behavioral Service and Bastion could help you since it's behavioral analysis, but that's more basic that what Bitdefender could do, and besides, why pay for a third-party solution in that case?

Andrei_S Enterprise

Hello @Pleonasm & @xerewoma11 ,

On the enterprise side there is a main product which is called GravityZone (a web console from where you manage all agents installed on different OSes, including macOS). BEST for Mac is the agent is the security agent in this case.
Again do not confuse GravityZone, which is an enterprise product, with other consumer products such as Total Security or Internet Security etc.

Strictly related to the BEST for Mac agent, you can find all new features released each month in our release notes: https://www.bitdefender.com/business/support/en/77209-78218-macos-agent.html#UUID-30ad76d5-7bbb-d776-c356-6b009173576b

You can check the section "New features and improvements" for each version.

Hope this helps on clarifying things.

Kind Regards,

Andrei