ROP is dying and your exploit mitigations are on life support

Return-Oriented Programming (ROP), once a prevalent technique for bypassing security measures like Data Execution Prevention (DEP), is becoming less relevant as attackers develop more sophisticated methods for exploiting vulnerabilities. Despite the existence of ROP defenses, such as Microsoft's Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET), attackers have shifted towards exploiting Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) weaknesses by using techniques that allow for memory reading and writing, making ROP unnecessary. New approaches, like Microsoft's Control Flow Guard (CFG) and Endgame's Hardware Assisted Control Flow Integrity (HA-CFI), focus on preventing exploitation at earlier stages, rather than the post-exploitation stage where attackers often succeed. These innovations aim to thwart attacks by monitoring and controlling the execution flow more effectively, highlighting the need for evolving defense strategies in response to the changing landscape of cybersecurity threats.