Microsoft Defender for Endpoint in Depth

1

A Brief History of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

This brief history captures, at a very high level, the evolution of Microsoft’s endpoint security solutions—a journey that has, at the time of writing, gone on for nearly a quarter of a century. By no means should it be seen as complete; however, a lot can be learned about a product by understanding how and why it became what it is.

It all started in Romania…

…at a company called GeCAD. Established in 1992 by Radu Georgescu, GeCAD originally focused on creating computer-aided design (CAD) software. In 1994, however, it reached out to Costin Raiu about distributing a commercial version of a virus scanner he had been distributing for free. Raiu had gained interest in viruses after a virus