Microsoft to Enable ‘Windows Baseline Security’ With New Runtime Integrity Safeguards

Microsoft announced this week new Windows enhancements to improve user safety and keep them better informed.

As part of the Secure Future Initiative announced in November 2023, the company is moving towards having runtime integrity safeguards enabled by default in Windows.

The enhancement, called Windows Baseline Security Mode, will ensure that only properly signed applications, drivers, and services can run, thus preventing tampering and unauthorized changes.

For those cases where exceptions are needed, users and administrators will have the option to override the safeguards.

“Developers can also check whether these protections are active and whether any exceptions have been granted — giving them insight and control over the conditions under which their apps run,” Microsoft notes.

The tech giant announced the improvement simultaneously with revealing that Secure Boot certificates will begin to expire in June, and that refreshed certificates will be rolled out to supported Windows releases.

Secure Boot protects devices ...