Microsoft has been prepping an anti-virus app for Windows for a while now. The project first saw light in November last year but since then has been relatively dormant. Reports are now coming in that Microsoft has begun internal beta testing of the security app on it’s own machines and it will be available free for Windows users in the near future. Many have complained that Microsoft should do better at securing their operating system which is a massive target for malware writers. The first stage of this was the introduction of Windows Defender which searches for and removes spyware and tracking software.

Microsoft has stated that they’ll make a trial/beta version available to the public soon and that news has already impacted on the share price of the big AV companies including Symantec. It’s likely that Microsoft’s AV solution, code named Morro (after a Beach in Brazil apparently), won’t compete with high-end security software but will likely make the more basic, yet still costly offerings redundant. I wonder whether the EU will have a look at this in the same regard they force Microsoft to release Windows without Internet Explorer should it come bundled with future versions of it’s operating system.

[Via Reuters]