Microsoft stops free security program EMET

Microsoft is discontinuing its free Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit. The company first released the program in 2009, but now its functionality has been limited and the toolkit is no longer in line with Windows development. Support will end in 2018.

According to Microsoft, EMET has always been a stopgap measure to overcome the lack of regular major updates to the operating system in terms of security. The usability was mainly in being able to respond quickly to exploit kits and testing functionality that would later find its way to different Windows versions. “But EMET has significant shortcomings precisely because it is not an integrated part of the operating system,” Microsoft said.

By now, there would be plenty of well-documented ways to get around EMET and system performance would suffer as the tool taps into low-level sections of the operating system. In addition, EMET would lag behind the development of Windows 10, which offers more advanced protection methods according to Microsoft.

The end-of-life date of EMET 5.5x was January 27, 2017. Microsoft is extending the EOL period to July 31, 2018. Until then, the tool will still receive security patches, but after that the company will stop using EMET completely.