How to Enable and Use Exploit Protection in Windows 11

Exploit is a program or technique used to exploit weaknesses or vulnerabilities in a system or software to gain unauthorized access or perform attacks on the system.

Exploits are often used by security researchers or ethical hackers as part of their efforts to identify vulnerabilities in systems and help developers to address those issues before malicious attackers find out about them and capitalize on them to carry out more malicious attacks.

However, exploits can also be utilized by irresponsible attackers to carry out attacks that damage or steal data, delete data, steal sensitive information, or even take control of the attacked system.

Exploit Protection in Windows 11

Keeping your computer safe is one of the most difficult tasks. Nowadays, anything that comes from an untrusted source can be deadly. Microsoft has significantly strengthened Windows security, although some flaws can still cause damage.

Exploit Protection is a security feature in Windows 11 designed to help protect systems from exploit attacks that take advantage of vulnerabilities in apps or the operating system. This feature works by applying a set of security policies that can prevent the execution of malicious code or restrict access to potentially dangerous system features.

Exploit Protection can be configured through the Windows Security app or the Group Policy Editor in Windows 11. Using Exploit Protection, users can choose to block or allow certain apps or processes to access certain system features, such as memory or the system registry.

In addition, users can also choose to enable or disable some protection features, such as limiting data execution (DEP), code execution mitigation (SEHOP), random address mitigation (ASLR), and others.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Exploit Protection in Windows 11

Some of the main advantages of Exploit Protection are:

1. Minimize the risk of attacks: By enabling Exploit Protection, users can minimize the risk of attacks that exploit system or application vulnerabilities, thereby improving system security.
2. Easy to configure: Exploit Protection can be easily configured using the Windows Security app or Group Policy Editor, so users can easily set different security policies to protect their systems.
3. Help protect vulnerable applications: Exploit Protection can help protect vulnerable applications from exploit attacks by applying appropriate security policies.

However, some disadvantages of Exploit Protection are:

1. Causes some applications to fail to run: Exploit Protection may restrict access to some system features used by certain applications, causing some applications to fail to run.
2. May affect system performance: Some Exploit Protection security policies may affect system performance, thus reducing system performance.
3. Not fully guaranteed: Like all security features, Exploit Protection is not fully guaranteed to protect the system from all types of attacks, so users should always keep the system and software updated with the latest security patches to reduce the risk of possible attacks.Bottom of Form

Enabling Exploit Protection in Windows 11

1. Open “Windows Security“. You can search for it via the Start Menu and select the shield icon in the taskbar.
2. Then select “App & browser control“.
3. Next, select “Exploit protection” and click on the “Exploit protection settings” link.

4. You will see system settings and program settings. Select “Program settings“.
5. If the app you want to change is not in the list, click the add icon button on “Add program to customize“.
6. There are two ways to add applications, namely with “Add by program name” and “Choose exact file path“.

Add by program name: mitigation is applied to any process running under that name.

Choose exact file path: mitigation is applied to applications in a specific location.

7. After selecting the application, you will see a list of all the mitigations that can be applied. Selecting Audit will apply the mitigation only in test mode. You will be notified if you need to restart processes, applications, or Windows.

8. Repeat this procedure for all the apps and mitigations you want to configure. Select Apply when you are done setting up your configuration.