With enterprises becoming increasingly reliant on applications to perform various functions, finding a solution to control and evaluate the security of those applications has become increasingly important. Now, Microsoft has introduced a new tool called Windows Defender Application Control to do just that.
Windows Defender Application Control is a new version of an underutilized capability from another Microsoft tool. It offers some unique benefits to enterprises and organizations. Here’s more about the new capability from Microsoft.
What Windows Defender Application Control does
The basic capability of Windows Defender Application Control is actually already available within Windows Defender Device Guard, a set of hardware and OS technologies that lets enterprises set their Windows systems and devices so that they operate with many of the typical properties of mobile devices. With Device Guard, you can restrict devices to only run authorized apps using a feature called configurable code integrity, while also hardening the system against kernel memory attacks using virtualization-based protection of code integrity.
Now, that basic function is being re-packaged into its own offering. With the Windows Fall Creators Update, Microsoft is re-branding and promoting this feature as Windows Defender Application Control. The hope is that by acknowledging this feature on its own, more users will understand the importance of application control and begin to use this capability.
How to use Windows Defender Application Control
To get started with Windows Defender Application Control, you can use Microsoft’s managed installer to declare trusted software distribution authorities so that applications deployed by those entities will be automatically authorized. You can also set up an application control policy to specify the applications that you want to authorize for your organization. You can access Windows Defender Application Control within the Fall Creators Update. Microsoft is also interested in hearing feedback from users about the feature.
Photo credit: Microsoft
