14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has just announced that its Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET) will benefit from extended support, as the company has decided to push back the retirement date from January 27, 2017 to July 31, 2018.
EMET is a solution that’s available on Windows operating systems to deal with the common exploit kits, adding a new layer of security beyond a typical antivirus solution. But with the release of Windows 10, part of the features available in EMET have been integrated into the operating system, so Microsoft sees no reason to continue improving the app in the future.
But since so many users are yet to move to Windows 10, feedback on the retirement of EMET has been focused mostly on extending the end of support date, especially because its features still come in handy on systems such as Windows 7 and 8.
“Serious limits”
Microsoft, however, admits that EMET has “serious limits,” explaining that most of them are caused by not being integrated into the operating system.
“Many of EMET’s features were not developed as robust security solutions. As such, while they blocked techniques that exploits used in the past, they were not designed to offer real durable protection against exploits over time. Not surprisingly, one can find well-publicized, often trivial bypasses, readily available online to circumvent EMET,” Microsoft says.
Additionally, the software giant explains that EMET could slow down the operating system in a significant way, as it could have an impact on both performance and reliability.
“This presents an ongoing problem for customers since every OS or application update can trigger performance and reliability issues due to incompatibility with EMET,” Microsoft says.
But despite all of these setbacks, users still want EMET to live on and Microsoft has decided to extend its support, but the company swears that no support or patches would be offered for this security tool after July 31, 2018.