Ventura causes real-time protection to turn off

[treed]

Update: This bug appears to have been fixed in macOS Ventura 13.1, so please consider updating Ventura, for this reason and others.

There is a bug in the release version of macOS Ventura that causes Full Disk Access for any security software (not just Malwarebytes) to fail to work properly after the Ventura upgrade. This results in real-time protection being turned off, even though within System Settings it appears that Malwarebytes Protection actually has Full Disk Access. The bug only appears to affect Malwarebytes if it was installed prior to upgrading to Ventura. New Malwarebytes installation on Ventura, on a machine where Malwarebytes has not been installed in the past, are not affected.

For those affected, you can fix the issue by following these steps: open System Settings, click on Privacy & Security, then Full Disk Access.

1. Open the System Settings app
2. Click on Privacy & Security, then Full Disk Access (you should see something like the image below)
3. Click once on the Malwarebytes Protection item to select it
4. Click the minus (-) button at the bottom of the list to remove the item
5. Open Malwarebytes and attempt to turn on real-time protection
6. You will see a window guiding you through the process of giving Full Disk Access to Malwarebytes
7. Go back to System Settings and turn on Full Disk Access for Malwarebytes Protection, which will have been added back to the list

After you have done this, real-time protection should automatically turn back on, if it had been on before this happened. If it does not turn back on, in can be re-enabled within the Malwarebytes app.

Edited January 23, 2023 by treed
Updated information