Microsoft recently announced a new layer of protection coming to Windows 10 that will help defend the operating system against some active hacking methodologies.
Called Kernel Data Protection, or KDP, it is designed to combat a very common threat vector; when hackers attempt to compromise applications running in memory. KDP protects areas of memory that are vulnerable to malware by making that section of the memory read-only.
Isolating Apps in Containers
Another coming data protection feature will isolate running applications in their own container. This will further protect running applications and also prevent a compromise from successfully attacking other applications that are running on the same computer.
The technical underpinnings of this are somewhat complex, yet also fairly straight forward if you understand how operating systems and software work at the kernel and virtualization level. Importantly, these safeguards will be coming to all Windows operating system platforms including Intel, AMD and ARM processors.
If you'd like to review more technical information about these coming security enhancements, Microsoft recently published a blog that goes into considerably more detail. It's nice to see more native protections coming at the operating system level. KDP is currently in beta, so stay tuned for the public launch.
MJ Shoer is founder and principal consultant at MJ Shoer LLC. Read more from MJ Shoer here.
