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Cyber Risks · Krebs on Security

Windows Security 101: EMET 4.0

Summary: Microsoft released EMET 4.0, a free Windows tool that forces third-party applications to use built-in defenses such as Address Space Layout Randomization and Data Execution Prevention, and adds new protections against return-oriented programming and man-in-the-middle attacks using counterfeit SSL certificates. The certificate trust feature only protects users browsing with Internet Explorer, and the tool requires .NET Framework 4, with Windows XP Service Pack 3 users unable to use mandatory ASLR and some other protections.

What's compelling: The certificate trust feature addresses fraudulent certificates obtained from certificate authorities including Comodo, DigiNotar and Turktrust, but it works only in Internet Explorer, leaving users of other browsers outside that protection. Krebs also notes that EMET's protections can crash applications such as Skype and Google Chrome when export address table access filtering is enabled, so the added defense carries a compatibility cost that has to be managed application by application.

Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗

Topics
Data Breaches
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