What is this "System software from developers" security feature called and where can I find the technical details for how it works with applications (like AVG)? I believe this is a kernel extension, but how exactly does it work?
MacOS – this security feature called
applicationskernelkernel-extensionsmacosSecurity
Related Solutions
See kextfind
A feature of OS X Mountain Lion is the ability to run only signed applications - that is, applications from Apple's app store - out of the box. This is a configurable setting, however, and can be changed in the settings screen you seem to have already uncovered. If you set the "Allow applications downloaded from" option to "Anywhere", your Mac should run applications downloaded from the internet as well.
Do be aware of the security implications of this, and consider changing it only when necessary (and reverting the setting after you've installed the downloaded application which you trust).
For more information, and screen shots, see: http://www.maclife.com/article/howtos/how_tweak_settings_gatekeeper_mountain_lion
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Best Answer
It is called Gatekeeper on Mac.
How it works.
It verifies at bare minimum if a app is:
As you can see from your screen you have control over it.
As of High Sierra, Apple has removed the Option to Download from Anywhere, but you can still enable it if you whish, or use Allow as in your screen.
AVG Technologies CZ, s.r.o. is a Czech security software company headquartered in Brno, that was founded in 1991 by Jan Gritzbach and Tomáš Hofer and has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Avast since 2016.