The Windows 10 Fall Creators Update Feature Focus
by Brett Howse on November 10, 2017 8:00 AM ESTSecurity Updates
Security is a never-ending battle, and each update Microsoft continues to add more features to help prevent malicious attacks. They have several new features that are worth going over for the Fall Creators Update.
Windows Defender Exploit Guard
The Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit has been replaced with Windows Defender Exploit Guard features, and the EMET is no longer supported on Windows 10 v1709. Windows Defender Exploit Guard is a new set of Host Intrusion Prevention features which can be used to reduce the attack surface of Windows 10. It’s designed for an enterprise environment, and completely customizable through Group Policy.
It offers four general feature sets, which are exploit protection, attack surface reduction rules, network protection, and controlled folder access. For a full rundown on all of these new features, be sure to check out docs.microsoft.com which has all of the details and proper settings.
Windows Defender Application Guard
Application Guard is designed for Microsoft Edge to isolate untrusted sites, which are going to be a huge concern for any IT department. Internet Explorer did have some features to help in these scenarios, but Application Guard takes it to a whole new level by actually opening untrusted sites in an isolated Hyper-V enabled container, completely cut off from the host operating system. Any malicious code on the site would not be able to access the host OS, at least not easily, which offers a significant amount of protection over just blocking scripts and flash. The ability to do this through policy, and have only allowed trusted sites to run out of the container, is very powerful and is a strong reason to consider Edge for the enterprise.
Ransomware Protection
One specific feature to call out in Exploit Guard is the controlled folder access, which is a mitigation for ransomware. Ransomware has become a huge problem, and having malicious software encrypt your hard drive can put a damper on anyone’s day. Controlled folder access works by locking down folders to only authorized apps have access to the files. Luckily, controlled folder access is available to all in Windows 10, without needing any Group Policy to set it up.
You can enable controlled folder access right in the Security Center for Windows 10, and customize which folders you want it enabled for.
The idea behind controlled folders is pretty simple. Folders can’t get encrypted if the process doesn’t have access to them. Sometimes simple is the best.
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prophet001 - Monday, November 13, 2017 - link
*emddrіver - Monday, November 13, 2017 - link
Facebook, Google, or Amazon also do it but lets be real, how can they monetize on my data? Will a company just suddenly guess what I like and dislike on FB? Do I find search results "adjusted" to my preference? Does Amazon give me different prices and offers than others? Idiocy!Plus, there's no sensitive data about me on my phone but I have all kinds of stuff in my computer like scans of important documents, CVs, etc. No way I let M$ have that.
Screw you - Wednesday, November 15, 2017 - link
As if the average customer will actually ever check certificate information. Most don't even know what a certificate is...And your request concerning firewall protection would be for a very small minority of paranoid techno-geeks who represent an insignificant and small portion of the Windows using population... Enacting a default firewall rule to block everything would make the Windows experience cumbersome and inefficient for MOST users. Things work just fine as they are right now... You really need to get over yourself Mr. Fort Knox.edzieba - Friday, November 10, 2017 - link
It's not going to make it 'less safe' either. Two and a half years after release, and not a single shred of evidence has been uncovered of Microsoft sending your files to themselves. And you can bet security researchers have been looking very closely too.shaikhsimraan - Sunday, November 12, 2017 - link
FRP Bypass APK: https://www.yourtechnocrat.com/frp-bypass-apk/Mo3tasm - Friday, November 10, 2017 - link
Fall creator update is certainly the best Win10 update, features are reasonably polished and the build is just a lot more stable...That being said, Win10 itself is bad.. slower than Win7 or even Win8.1 (and an order of magnitude than any Linux distro), you're forced to use the system in a way that you don't necessarily like, and updates are just shoved up the ass...
ddriver - Friday, November 10, 2017 - link
Yeah, good old w7 is still the best, as long as you keep close attention to what updates you are installing.Unfortunately, m$ took measures against the selective installation of updates, and recently releases those "update bundles", each of which contains all the updates and you definitely don't want on your machine, such as telemetry.
Additionally, m$ colluded with hardware vendors to omit support for w7 from their latest hardware driver packages. Granted, some might actually work, but it is usually hacky and not 100% operational.
Really revolting, heinous, despicable behavior. Grade A scumbags...
Ratman6161 - Friday, November 10, 2017 - link
Here is the other side of the coin. The vast majority of exploits which make it into the news are exploiting know things that only work on systems that have not installed updates. Wannacry was a perfect example.Bullwinkle-J-Moose - Saturday, December 23, 2017 - link
Bad example Ratman!Wannacry had no effect on Windows XP-SP2 with no Microsoft Updates, only SP3 was affected
Once Microsoft updates yer box, NSA exploits work again like magic
Mo3tasm - Friday, November 10, 2017 - link
I suspect it also has to do with frequent updates, developers can get lazy all they want when they must fix bugs or optimize performance, because they can always do it "next month"..Back in the days when you could push major code changes only once per version they had to work really hard to perfect every line of code.