Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac.

Hi Nick,

Yes our product detects malicious software that targets Macs, Windows, Linux, and likely a few other exotic platforms. Detections for other platforms (non-Macs) makes sense if you are regularly sharing information with Windows machines (e.g. sharing removable drives, dual-boot with shared partitions, etc).

The software will detect and block access to malicious files when the system attempts to read them. This might happen when you try to open an infected Word document, or maybe try to run an app you downloaded from the Internet, or when you copy files from a USB removable thumb stick. Of course those are only a few examples, but you get the idea.

Hope that helps!

As an example of a non-Mac detection that could be useful:

The product also detects known-malicious iOS apps, which means if you attempt to download one via iTunes, or synchronize an iOS device that has done a wireless download of a malicious iOS app, we will detect it and prevent it from being synchronized.  We do the same thing for Android apps.

Of course, the iTunes store and Android marketplace are usually pretty quick to take down malicious software, so in most cases (downloading direct from the provider) this isn't an issue.