Exploit Protection Windows 10
Ronald Frison
Exploit protection helps protect against malware that uses exploits to infect devices and spread. Exploit protection consists of many mitigations that can be applied to either the operating system or individual apps.
.NET 2.0 is not compatible with some exploit protection capabilities, specifically, Export Address Filtering (EAF) and Import Address Filtering (IAF). If you have enabled .NET 2.0, usage of EAF and IAF are not supported.
Exploit protection is configured by default in Windows 10 and Windows 11. You can set each mitigation to on, off, or to its default value. Some mitigations have more options. You can export these settings as an XML file and deploy them to other devices.
After selecting the app, you'll see a list of all the mitigations that can be applied. Choosing Audit will apply the mitigation in audit mode only. You're notified if you need to restart the process or app, or if you need to restart Windows.
Under the System settings section, find the mitigation you want to configure and then specify one of the following settings. Apps that aren't configured individually in the Program settings section use the settings that are configured here.
If you add an app to the Program settings section and configure individual mitigation settings there, they'll be honored above the configuration for the same mitigations specified in the System settings section. The following matrix and examples help to illustrate how defaults work:
After selecting the app, you'll see a list of all the mitigations that can be applied. Choosing Audit will apply the mitigation in audit mode only. You'll be notified if you need to restart the process or app, or if you need to restart Windows.
You can use the PowerShell verb Get or Set with the cmdlet ProcessMitigation. Using Get will list the current configuration status of any mitigations that have been enabled on the device - add the -Name cmdlet and app exe to see mitigations for just that app:
For example, to enable the Data Execution Prevention (DEP) mitigation with ATL thunk emulation and for an executable called testing.exe in the folder C:\Apps\LOB\tests, and to prevent that executable from creating child processes, you'd use the following command:
Configure these settings using the Windows Security app on an individual device. Then, export the configuration as an XML file so you can deploy to other devices. Use Group Policy to distribute the XML file to multiple devices at once. You can also configure the mitigations with PowerShell.
This article lists each of the mitigations available in exploit protection. It indicates whether the mitigation can be applied system-wide or to individual apps, and provides a brief description of how the mitigation works.
It also describes how to enable or configure the mitigations using Windows Security, PowerShell, and mobile device management (MDM) configuration service providers (CSPs). This is the first step in creating a configuration that you can deploy across your network. The next step involves generating, exporting, importing, and deploying the configuration to multiple devices.
Some security mitigation technologies may have compatibility issues with some applications. You should test exploit protection in all target use scenarios by using audit mode before deploying the configuration across a production environment or the rest of your network.
The Use default configuration for each of the mitigation settings indicates our recommendation for a base level of protection for everyday usage for home users. Enterprise deployments should consider the protection required for their individual needs and may need to modify configuration away from the defaults.
If you add an app to the Program settings section and configure individual mitigation settings there, they will be honored above the configuration for the same mitigations specified in the System settings section. The following matrix and examples help to illustrate how defaults work:
Under the System settings section, find the mitigation you want to configure and select one of the following. Apps that aren't configured individually in the Program settings section will use the settings configured here:
After selecting the app, you'll see a list of all the mitigations that can be applied. To enable the mitigation, select the check box and then change the slider to On. Select any additional options. Choosing Audit will apply the mitigation in audit mode only. You will be notified if you need to restart the process or app, or if you need to restart Windows.
The configuration settings that were most recently modified will always be applied - regardless of whether you use PowerShell or Windows Security. This means that if you use the app to configure a mitigation, then use PowerShell to configure the same mitigation, the app will update to show the changes you made with PowerShell. If you were to then use the app to change the mitigation again, that change would apply.
Any changes that are deployed to a device through Group Policy will override the local configuration. When setting up an initial configuration, use a device that will not have a Group Policy configuration applied to ensure your changes aren't overridden.
You can also set some mitigations to audit mode. Instead of using the PowerShell cmdlet for the mitigation, use the Audit mode cmdlet as specified in the mitigation cmdlets table below.
Recently I tried to check to see if my Windows defender settings were still as they were, as I usually do after any update, and I noticed that the exploit protection settings options were all blank, which was strange as I had them all turned on previously, and upon trying to change them to on by default I got an error saying "Unexpected error. Sorry, We ran into a problem. Please try again. " I've tried several times and I get the same error everytime.
I've also noticed a new setting that was there in the previous update called Kernel mode hardware enforced stack protection is missing altogether, and that tamper protection appears to be managed by an administrator, which is very strange seeing that I have no administrators.
Simply clicking and scrolling through settings also seems to prompt the random appearance of the error message I described previously.
I'm unsure if this is some sort of malware issue, or maybe a possible error that occurred in a previous update.
Any help would be appreciated, thank you!
Is this an issue related to any kind of malware?
Also are there any other solutions that don't require a clean reinstall of windows? I'd like to add that as of restarting my computer just now the settings seems to be fine, however I'm still missing that Kernel mode hardware enforced stack protection option I mentioned earlier.
Oh sorry I misread the first solution you sent, how likely is it that this fix will completely solve my issue?
Another question, where would I download the files needed to do an in-place upgrade?
I don't know if it will solve your issue or not but I do know that a CLEAN install will. As for the Kernel mode hardware enforced stack protection I would ignore that. Microsoft already says customers will see that.
Ok, that's good to know, and alright I will do the repair install as soon as I can, also sorry but I'm a bit confused about your wording, do you think there is a chance the repair install will fix this issue? Or are you saying the only way to completely fix this would be the clean install?
Oh ok, how likely does it seem that I may have one of those issues that wouldnt be fixed with just the repair install? I've been having this issue with Windows defender randomly seemingly breaking and then being seemingly completely fine upon simply restarting for a while now, but the fact that it's reoccurring makes it seem more serious.
My main issue with possibly having to do a clean reset of my computer is that I think there's a high chance of making my issues worse because my computer is an HP prebuilt, and I'm not the most experienced when it comes to resetting computers.
Ok, in the options for the reset in the windows settings that's shown in the HP reset link you sent, there are 2 options from what I remember, as I had to do the same for my laptop, one is to keep all your files, and the other will erase everything. Which one should I do? I'm assuming the reset everything option correct?
Security applications that look for behavior used during exploitation such as Windows Defender Exploit Guard (WDEG) and the Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET) can be used to mitigate some exploitation behavior. [1] Control flow integrity checking is another way to potentially identify and stop a software exploit from occurring. [2] Many of these protections depend on the architecture and target application binary for compatibility.
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