Windows Defender Exploit Guard

Version: 10.4

Windows Defender Exploit Guard has four components designed to lock down the device against a wide variety of attack vectors and block behaviors commonly used in malware attacks, while enabling enterprises to balance their security risk and productivity requirements. The four components of Windows Defender Exploit Guard are Attack Surface Reduction (ASR), Network protection, Controlled folder access, and Exploit protection. Under this security enhancement, Controlled folder access is enabled and configured with specific Attack Surface Reduction rules.

Attack Surface Reduction

Block or detect attack techniques commonly used by attackers, such as preventing exploitation of vulnerabilities via common attack vectors (for example, exploiting macros, scripts and PowerShell attacks).  

Rules

These are the suggested rules that will be enabled. More details about the rules reference can be found in the Microsoft documentation.

Rule Name

Rule GUID

Block Adobe Reader from creating child processes

7674ba52-37eb-4a4f-a9a1-f0f9a1619a2c

Block all Office applications from creating child processes

d4f940ab-401b-4efc-aadc-ad5f3c50688a

Block credential stealing from the Windows local security authority subsystem (lsass.exe)

9e6c4e1f-7d60-472f-ba1a-a39ef669e4b2

Block executable content from email client and webmail

be9ba2d9-53ea-4cdc-84e5-9b1eeee46550

Block execution of potentially obfuscated scripts

5beb7efe-fd9a-4556-801d-275e5ffc04cc

Block JavaScript or VBScript from launching downloaded executable content

d3e037e1-3eb8-44c8-a917-57927947596d

Block Office applications from creating executable content

3b576869-a4ec-4529-8536-b80a7769e899

Block Office applications from injecting code into other processes

75668c1f-73b5-4cf0-bb93-3ecf5cb7cc84

Block Office communication application from creating child processes

26190899-1602-49e8-8b27-eb1d0a1ce869

Block rebooting machine in Safe Mode (preview)

33ddedf1-c6e0-47cb-833e-de6133960387

Block untrusted and unsigned processes that run from USB

b2b3f03d-6a65-4f7b-a9c7-1c7ef74a9ba4

Block Win32 API calls from Office macros

92e97fa1-2edf-4476-bdd6-9dd0b4dddc7b

Controlled Folder Access

Protect critical files and folders from ransomware and other malicious attacks. It prevents unauthorized apps and untrusted process from making changes to important files by restricting access to designated protected folders. More details about this component can be found in the Microsoft documentation.

Note

The prerequisite for having the security enhancements reflected as compliant with Windows Defender is that the Cloud Defender CSPM plan for Servers must be enabled.

Cost

The cost might vary and can be calculated on the Microsoft Defender for Cloud pricing page. It depends on the region and whether Microsoft Defender for Servers Plan 1 or 2 is selected. There is no additional cost for this feature, other than Defender.

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