Microsoft Updates Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET)

Microsoft has released a new version of its Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET).

EMET is specifically designed to block targeted attacks against unfixed vulnerabilities, making it more difficult for attackers to gain access to systems. The toolkit is free and helps improve the security of applications without having to recode them. Developers and IT security professionals are able to add new and existing security mitigation technologies to software in order to help protect against exploitation of vulnerabilities. All mitigations can be applied on a per-application basis with customized settings, allowing developers to bring newer security mitigations to older applications.

Some key improvements to the latest version include:

• Ability to export/import EMET settings

• IT pros can now export settings from a system and easily deploy those setting to all systems on the network though the command line utility.

• Improved command line support for enterprise deployment

• This version, through the command line utility, offers more granularity, allowing users to enable individual mitigations.

• Improved SEHOP (structured exception handler overwrite protection) mitigation

The new version also marks the first version of EMET is available as an officially-supported product, with Microsoft providing support through online forms.

Be cautious when using the tool, as Microsoft warns that some security mitigation technologies may break applications and strongly suggests to thoroughly test EMET in all target use scenarios before rolling it out to a production environment. EMET is available as a free download here.