Over the past couple of months, various software exploits and ransomware have been making the rounds. Due to their marketshare, Microsoft Windows is the most common victim in these attacks. In an effort to boost security, Microsoft is adding in a tool they stripped away from Windows 10. Arriving in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, Windows Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit or EMET is coming back.
The Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit is a useful tool for hardening Windows 10 security. Because Windows is so clunky and large, there are bound to bugs and security loopholes. EMET aims to provide mitigation to ensure that even when there is a breach, it is not exploitable. It does this through various built-in Windows features and EMET specific ones. Microsoft decided with Windows 10 that the base OS was secure enough and removed EMET.
Exploit Guard is EMET for Windows 10
As it turns out the built-in protections offered in Windows 10 are not enough. More specifically, the built-in controls need a tool to manage everything. This is where Exploit Guard comes in. Exploit Guard is part of the built-in Windows Defender security suite. With the new control panel, users can fine tune protections for each specific app. As a result of some protections, issues may occur with certain apps. By putting controls in Exploit Guard, Microsoft can bundle in more aggressive protections and allow users to disable any as necessary.
Beyond more tailored app-specific protections, Exploit Guard will also manage operating system wide protections. It is unknown at this point if Windows Defender Exploit Guard will be enabled if Windows Defender is disabled. With some time left to go until the update, we will likely get more details as rollout gets closer.
