Microsoft responds to sophisticated cyberattacks via SolarWinds Orion

Microsoft is aware of a sophisticated attack that utilizes malicious SolarWinds software. On December 17, 2020, Brad Smith posted a blog sharing the most up to date information and detailed technical information for defenders.

As this is an ongoing investigation, Microsoft cybersecurity teams continue to act as first responders to these attacks. We know that customers and partners will have ongoing questions and Microsoft is committed to providing timely updates as new information becomes available. We will make updates through our Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) blog at https://aka.ms/solorigate.

There are a number of published resources to assist customers in securing their environments:

•	We have published a blog outlining this dynamic threat landscape and the principles with which we are approaching the investigation.
•	We have published an anchor blog with technical details of the attack. This blog will be updated with new information as the investigation continues. Customers should look to this blog as the one stop for updates on the sophisticated attack.
•	Microsoft Defender antivirus and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint have released protections for the malicious SolarWinds software and other artifacts from the attack.
•	Microsoft Azure Sentinel has released guidance to help Azure Sentinel customers hunt in their environments for related activity we have observed with this sophisticated attack.
•	Microsoft 365 Defender and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint customers should review the Threat Analytics article within the Defender console (sign-in is required) for information about detection and potential impact to their environments.
•	For any Microsoft Threat Experts (MTE) customers, where we have observed suspicious activity in the customers’ environments, we have completed Targeted Account Notifications.
•	If a customer has any product support related needs, please continue to direct them to Microsoft Support (CSS) who remain the primary place for all customer support needs.
•	For Identity professionals and Microsoft 365 admin, we have published a blog with guidance on how to protect Microsoft 365 from on-premises attacks.

Microsoft Blog Posts

•	December 13 - Customer Guidance on Recent Nation-State Cyber Attacks – Microsoft Security Response Center
•	December 13 - Important steps for customers to protect themselves from recent nation-state cyberattacks
•	December 15 - Ensuring customers are protected from Solorigate
•	December 16 - SolarWinds Post-Compromise Hunting with Azure Sentinel - Microsoft Tech Community
•	December 17 - A moment of reckoning: the need for a strong and global cybersecurity response
•	December 18 - Analyzing Solorigate, the compromised DLL file that started a sophisticated cyberattack, and how Microsoft Defender helps protect - Microsoft Security
•	December 18 - Protecting Microsoft 365 from on-premises attacks

Advisories & Additional Resources

•	If your customer has a specific question regarding FireEye, please refer them to the FireEye Advisory.
•	If your customer has a specific question regarding SolarWinds, please refer them to the SolarWinds Advisory.
•	The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has published a set of information and guidance here. For individual country-specific guidance, customers and partners should refer to information from the appropriate law enforcement or other government entity in that jurisdiction. www.microsoft.com

Microsoft changes terms to convert "valued partners" to cash cows!

The upcoming changes to the Microsoft Partner Network taking effect from the 1st of August is a war on Microsoft Partners and those who have been loyal to the company. Here are the changes summarised:

From July 1st 2020: Microsoft will be updating the terms of use for product licenses to remove the internal use association for partners. This means the applications you where previously allowed to use in your business as part of your membership will now have to be purchased under commercial arrangements. Changes to IUR (July 1st 2020): https://partner.microsoft.com/en-us/membership/internal-use-software

From August 1st 2019: Microsoft is retiring the on-premises product support incidents currently included with Silver and Gold competencies and in the Microsoft Action Pack, effective when partners renew their existing competency or subscription beginning August 2019. Changes to Partner Support Incidents (August 1st 2019): https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/2987884/microsoft-partner-network-technical-benefits-summary

From October 1st 2019: The core product licenses included with competencies will be specific to the competency you attain. Meaning core products which where previously part of all memberships we now have to pay for in full. For some partners this is going to cost them thousands of dollars a month extra. Example of this is Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement which a lot of IT companies now use as part of their business. To ask a company using 15 x Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement licenses to now pay $160 each for them doesn’t sit right. That’s $2400 a month you now have to start paying if you where using 15 x Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement licenses under Small and Mid Market Cloud Competency. Changes to Core Benefits (October 1st 2019): https://assetsprod.microsoft.com/en-au/preview-product-licenses-included-with-competencies.pdf

This is really shabby Microsoft! Your partners have helped to build you to be one of the biggest companies on the planet. So how do you reward them? By using them as a cash cow! Fortunately I stopped using the Internal Use Rights some time ago & pay commercial rates for the services that Donline uses. However this is going to hit some fellow Microsoft partners hard.

UPDATE: from The Register - Microsoft tells resellers: 'We listened to you, and we have acted'. Software-snatcher backs down on licence plans. HORRAY!

www.change.org

Microsoft product name updates - important & confusing!

"Designed to help you achieve more with innovative Office apps, intelligent cloud services, and world-class security".

Effective 21st April 2020, the following products will be renamed by Microsoft:

Office 365 Business Essentials >>> Microsoft 365 Business Basic

Office 365 Business Premium >>> Microsoft 365 Business Standard

Microsoft 365 Business >>> Microsoft 365 Business Premium

Office 365 Business >>> Microsoft 365 Apps for Business

Office 365 ProPlus >>> Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise

First came Office 365 which was cloud enabled MS Office.

Then came Microsoft 365 - which was Office, Win10 & security.

Now they have merged the products and some of the names overlap!

Like we haven't got enough confusion in the world with COVID-19!

Thanks Microsoft - not!

www.microsoft.com

Microsoft will end Publisher support and remove it from Microsoft 365 in October 2026

Microsoft has published some big news for its Office users. Microsoft Publisher, a program for designing brochures, flyers, newsletters, posters, and other print materials, will soon reach its end of life. The company plans to end Publisher support in October 2026 and remove it from the Microsoft 365 subscription afterward.

The announcement was quietly published on the official Microsoft Support website. The company says that the reason behind the decision was to "focus on new benefits" and "provide customers with the tools they need to achieve what matters." However, no tools for you if you are a Microsoft Publisher user. The company will kill the software in less than two years.

According to the support document, most of the Publisher features for creating professionally branded templates, envelops, and label printing are already available in other Microsoft 365 applications. Therefore, you can use Word or PowerPoint as a replacement for the outgoing app. Microsoft also promises to share more as it is "exploring modern ways to achieve common Publisher scenarios" in Word, PowerPoint, and Designer.

Existing Publisher users can continue working with the app until October 2026. In that month, Microsoft will end Office 2021 LTSC support, including Publisher. As for Microsoft 365 users, the company will remove Publisher from their systems once it reaches the end of life.

www.neowin.net

Microsoft breaks Microsoft account sign-ins in Windows 11 with latest update

 

Microsoft has broken account sign-ins in Windows 11 25H2 and 24H2 with a recent update, causing error messages in apps like OneDrive and Office.

The glitch affects sign-in operations for Microsoft accounts. Businesses using Entra ID (previously known as Azure Active Directory) for application authentication are not affected.

However, users of Microsoft Teams Free, or anyone signing into Word, Excel, OneDrive, or Microsoft 365 Copilot with a Microsoft account, may see a message along the lines of "You'll need the Internet for this. It doesn't look like you're connected to the Internet" - regardless of whether the device actually is.

According to Microsoft: "This issue occurs when the device enters a specific network connectivity state, and may resolve on its own." A restart should also fix it, provided the device is online at the time.

"If the device is restarted without an active internet connection," Microsoft cautioned, "it might return to a connectivity state where the issue can occur again."

As for a fix that doesn't involve a weary reach for the big red button – virtual or otherwise – Microsoft wrote: "We are working to release a resolution for this issue in the next few days." This sounds a lot like yet another out-of-band update to deal with whatever the company broke in the March 10 update for Windows 11 25H2 and 24H2.

www.theregister.com

Yet more bad decisions from Microsoft: pulling charity licenses!

The Microsoft 365 Business Premium grant will be discontinued on your next renewal on or after July 1, 2025. Your licenses will expire on August 17, 2025. We will continue to provide up to 300 granted licenses of Microsoft 365 Business Basic and discounts of up to 75 percent on many Microsoft 365 offers to nonprofits, including Microsoft 365 Business Premium.

We strongly advise transitioning your users to a different Microsoft 365 offer for nonprofits before the subscription is cancelled to avoid disruption and data loss. Learn more about what happens to your data and access when your subscription ends.

Please sign this petition: Urge Microsoft to Continue Grant Program for Nonprofits - thank you!

You've read it here before: Microsoft seems to be making all their decisions as bad decisions.

Meanwhile, in other news: Microsoft boots 3% of staff in latest cull, middle managers first in line.

www.microsoft.com

Its a wrap! Microsoft Future Decoded 2019 - a brilliant catchup on tech trends, & many inspiring speakers

Now in its sixth year, Microsoft Future Decoded is the place to network with like-minded peers, discuss new ideas and go hands-on with the technologies that are transforming the way we live, work, and play.

Cutting-edge AI and cloud computing is driving unimaginable growth, helping us better understand our clients, customers, and competitors.

But that’s just the beginning…

As a new era of computing dawns, rapid advances in technology offer new and ethical ways to solve the social issues that impact us all.

Over two days, Microsoft Future Decoded promises insights into all the top technology trends – and what it means for your world.

Through a series of highly focused sessions led by industry experts, discover the skills your business needs to adapt to our exciting AI age.

Keynote Speakers: day 1

Dr Chris Brauer, Director of Innovation, Institute of Management Studies, Goldsmiths University

Nick Wise, CEO, OceanMind

Dr Lucas Joppa, Chief Environmental Officer, Microsoft

Peggy Johnson, Executive Vice President of Business Development, Microsoft

Dr Helen Sharman, CMG OBE

Major Tim Peake CMG

Keynote Speakers: day 2

Chris Bishop, Technical Fellow & Laboratory Director, Microsoft Research Cambridge

Mitra Azizirad, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft AI, Microsoft

Simon Gillespie, Chief Executive, British Heart Foundation

Jenny Lay-Flurrie, Chief Accessibility Officer, Microsoft

Christian Horner OBE, Team Principal, Red Bull Racing Formula 1

A great use of two & a half days days. Now to catch up on the messages!

www.futuredecoded.microsoft.com

Microsoft Outlook - a bit like Coke!

Baffled by the plethora of Outlook options out there? You aren't alone. Microsoft veteran Scott Hanselman posted a list of some more variants that could be used to do the same thing.

It's a problem common to several Microsoft products. A file needs to be opened, but which app should be used? Should it be Outlook New, or Outlook (New)? With tongue firmly in cheek, Hanselman listed some more options: Outlook (Zero Sugar), Outlook (Caffeine Free), and so on.

Hanselman, Developer Community veep at Microsoft, also included Outlook '95, although to our mind the peak came with the version of Outlook in Office 97. A happier, more trusting time when security was less important.

While users can create multiple Outlook profiles to store email account details and data locations, Hanselman's post on Bluesky highlights an issue facing many users of Microsoft's software: which incarnation of the application to use.

Teams users often find themselves presented with a variety of applications – Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Teams (Personal), for example, can often appear side by side in the system tray.

As for Outlook, users are likely to have multiple versions installed. Microsoft forced the new version onto devices as part of a Windows update and renamed the previous version to Outlook (Classic) so the pair could run side by side. While support for the Classic version of Outlook will persist until at least 2029, Microsoft would like users to move to the new version despite it lacking many of its predecessor's functions.

According to Microsoft: "The new Outlook for Windows, built upon modern service architecture, is inspired by the Outlook web experience." It also does not support the COM add-ins used by many enterprises to glue corporate workflows together. READ MORE...

www.theregister.com

Microsoft is shutting down Skype in favour of Teams

Microsoft is shutting down Skype in May and replacing it with the free version of Microsoft Teams for consumers. Existing Skype users will be able to log in to the Microsoft Teams app and have their message history, group chats, and contacts all automatically available without having to create another account, or they can choose to export their data instead. Microsoft is also phasing out support for calling domestic or international numbers.

”Skype users will be in control, they’ll have the choice,” says Jeff Teper, president of Microsoft 365 collaborative apps and platforms, in an interview with The Verge. “They can migrate their conversation history and their contacts out and move on if they want, or they can migrate to Teams.”

If you choose to move on and bring your Skype data with you, the exported data will include photos and conversation history. Microsoft also made a tool to easily view existing Skype chat history if you don’t want to move to Teams.

Skype will remain online until May 5th, so existing users will have around 60 days to decide whether they want to switch to Microsoft Teams or export their data. “If they do want to come to Teams then the first-run is pretty instantaneous because we’ve already done the work on the backend to restore their contacts, message history, and call logs,” says Amit Fulay, vice president of product at Microsoft.

www.theverge.com

Dear Microsoft: stop it with Copilot, already!

Marc D Anderson Writes: Until recently, one of the easiest ways to get “into” Microsoft 365 was to go to Office.com. I’ll readily admit that I never spent any time on the page, mainly because most of my time in Microsoft 365 is spent building sites, pages, libraries, etc.

But Microsoft’s stated intent – stated many times, in fact – was to help you get right back to your work by going to Office.com’s home page. It showed the Office apps for which you were licensed, and more importantly to many people, the files with which you’d recently been working.

These days, we are redirected to https://m365.cloud.microsoft/chat/?auth=2, shown above. (It’s multiple redirects to get there, and in Edge it frequently fails for me, requiring a reload.) This is what it looks like with no Copilot license at all.

When you have a Copilot license, it looks, well, almost the same, but with a few additions. Can you spot them?

This has been bugging me since it happened, and today, I piled onto a LinkedIn post from Sympraxian Julie Turner (@julieturner.net on Bluesky) about it.

The fact that Microsoft is now forcing people to a page focused on Copilot shows a disconnect from a large portion of their user base. There are several important considerations here.

• First, many organizations simply aren’t ready to do anything with AI or Copilot. Putting Copilot front & center when they haven’t subscribed to Copilot at all is not useful for them.
• Second, this is a significant change to a landing page which Microsoft has touted for years as “the place to start your day”. That use case has been removed totally from the page. No recent documents, no apps, no waffle, etc. Sure, there’s an Apps link to the left, but it adds an unnecessary extra click to go where we want to go.
• Third, the only way to go from that page to something we’ve recently worked on is to search – encouraging people to use search where the Microsoft Graph was actually being useful before by showing recent work – or by asking Copilot. See my first point.
• Finally, by forcing agents on people, we are going to get yet another ungoverned mess. Plus, if you don’t have Copilot licensing or pay-as-you-go enabled, you very quickly hit a dead end with agents. It’s a solution begging for use to invest in it – which is NOT a good look for Microsoft. Forcing people into buying licenses to make a page useful was not the ethos we expected historically from them.

This change to Office.com just one example of Copilot being rammed down the throats of people who may not want it at all, while taking away features people actually used. READ MORE...

www.sympmarc.com

Windows 11 turns five, leaving some important lessons for Microsoft

On June 24, 2021, Microsoft announced Windows 11, unveiling a new and controversial operating system. Five years on, how has that worked out for you, Redmond?

Windows 11 has always been a problem child for Microsoft. It was announced in June 2021 and became generally available on October 5 that year, while much of its customer base was still reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, The Register called it pointless rather than a point release of Microsoft's flagship operating system.

Why? Because Windows 10 was more than adequate. Microsoft's apology for the Windows 8.x era was… fine. It mostly worked without difficulty. It lacked the user-experience missteps of its predecessors and was an architectural step up from Windows 7. And, most importantly, the operating system didn't trip up a user's workflow.

There is an old adage: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," but Microsoft set to work fixing Windows 10 regardless, and the result was Windows 11. The user experience has irked users ever since. Did you like being able to move the taskbar around in Windows 10? Tough – in Windows 11, you'll have to learn to love where Microsoft stuck it. How about the Start Menu? Again, Microsoft knew best and redesigned it. READ MORE...

www.theregister.com

Do you recall "Microsoft Recall"? Well Microsoft has delayed it again. They need to delay it permanently!

Microsoft is once again delaying the roll out of its controversial Recall feature for Copilot Plus PCs. The software giant had planned to start testing Recall, which creates screenshots of mostly everything you see or do on a Copilot Plus PC, with Windows Insiders in October. Now, Microsoft says it needs more time to get the feature ready.

“We are committed to delivering a secure and trusted experience with Recall. To ensure we deliver on these important updates, we’re taking additional time to refine the experience before previewing it with Windows Insiders,” says Brandon LeBlanc, senior product manager of Windows, in a statement to The Verge.” Originally planned for October, Recall will now be available for preview with Windows Insiders on Copilot Plus PCs by December.”

Microsoft was forced to originally hold back Recall after security concerns were raised ahead of its planned debut with Copilot Plus PCs in June. After a delay to the launch, Recall was then supposed to appear for Windows Insiders just a matter of weeks later. Then Microsoft delayed Recall again to October, and now it’s coming by December.

Microsoft’s multiple delays are related to it overhauling Recall’s security, making it an opt-in experience, and allowing Copilot Plus PC owners to fully uninstall it. Microsoft has spent the past few months focused on ensuring its Recall database is fully encrypted and that the only way to get access is to authenticate through Windows Hello.

www.theverge.com

Microsoft won’t support Office apps on Windows 10 after October 14th

 

Microsoft says it will no longer support Office apps, known as Microsoft 365 apps, on Windows 10 later this year. The support cutoff coincides with Windows 10’s end of support on October 14th, and will mean businesses and consumers that rely on Microsoft 365 apps will need to upgrade to Windows 11.

“Microsoft 365 Apps will no longer be supported after October 14, 2025, on Windows 10 devices,” says Microsoft in a blog post. “To use Microsoft 365 Applications on your device, you will need to upgrade to Windows 11.”

While support will end for Office apps on Windows 10 in October, it doesn’t mean the apps will suddenly stop working. Microsoft notes in a support document that was updated in December that “the applications will continue to function as before” after Windows 10 support ends, but that there could be “performance and reliability issues over time.”

www.theverge.com

To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer. Honestly: what a waste of space!

 

Wikipedia: Microsoft Copilot is a generative artificial intelligence chatbot developed by Microsoft. Based on a large language model, it was launched in February 2023 as Microsoft's primary replacement for the discontinued Cortana.

The service was introduced under the name Bing Chat, as a built-in feature for Microsoft Bing and Microsoft Edge. Over the course of 2023, Microsoft began to unify the Copilot branding across its various chatbot products, cementing the copilot analogy. At its Build 2023 conference, Microsoft announced its plans to integrate Copilot into Windows 11, allowing users to access it directly through the taskbar. In January 2024, a dedicated Copilot key was announced for Windows keyboards.

copilot.microsoft.com

Microsoft moved the goalposts once. Will Windows 12 bring another shift?

Retired Microsoft engineer Dave Plummer has weighed in on the increasingly heated discussion regarding the impending end of Windows 10. Are Windows 11's hardware requirements all about security or just a sales ploy in disguise?

Plummer comes from the days of MS-DOS and Windows NT 4 and had a hand in Windows Activation. He also recently mused on Microsoft's move to a subscription model, regarding the latest iterations of Microsoft's operating system as more of an "adversary" than an assistant.

The controversy over Windows 11's hardware requirements is more nuanced. On one side, there is the laudable goal of securing Windows by requiring the presence of a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 and a relatively modern CPU. On the other hand, there are many devices capable of running Windows 10 that fail Microsoft's hardware compatibility requirements, usually through a lack of TPM 2.0 and/or an older CPU.

"Microsoft," said Plummer, "has previously ended support for older operating systems. The discontinuation of support for Windows XP and later Windows 7 are prime examples. In those cases, the primary rationale was usually the increasing difficulty and cost of maintaining security and ensuring compatibility with modern software and hardware on aging platforms.

"However, the Windows 11 situation feels somewhat different. Many of the PCs excluded by the TPM and CPU requirements are not necessarily old or underpowered; they simply lack a specific relatively recent security chip or a sufficiently new processor architecture.

Although older Surface devices might not meet Microsoft's hardware requirements for Windows 11, the company announced new hardware this week in the form of a 12-inch Surface Pro and a 13-inch Surface Laptop. Both are powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon chips and, unsurprisingly, carry the Copilot+ PC label.

"This feels less like a natural progression of technology leaving older systems behind due to performance limitations, and more like a specific hardware gate being erected."

The question must also be asked – what does this mean for Windows 12? Microsoft is relentlessly promoting its Copilot+ PCs, and it's not hard to envisage a world where hardware acceleration for the company's AI becomes a prerequisite. Accessing a preview of the company's flagship Recall feature currently requires a Copilot+ PC, for example.

"If this trend continues," Plummer continued, "it's quite conceivable that future versions of Windows could impose even stricter hardware demands, potentially leaving an even larger number of currently functional PCs unable to upgrade," and so the cycle goes on...

www.theregister.com

Deal of the day: Microsoft 365 Family: Office 365 apps, up to 6 users, 1 year subscription - under £50!

 

Office 365 is now Microsoft 365. Microsoft 365 Family has everything you enjoy in Office 365 Home and much more. Every Office 365 user is automatically updated to Microsoft 365

12 months subscription - up to 6 users – each user can install on 1 PC or Mac, 1 tablet or iPad and 1 mobile phone (Windows, iOS, Android). Install code in box (requires Internet)

Premium, always updated, Office 365 apps: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and others

Cloud Storage: 6 TB total OneDrive (1 TB per person) with Premium Security, to collaborate on documents with others online and to secure your sensitive files in OneDrive Personal Vault. Skype: 60 minutes of calling per month for each user. Premium support via chat or phone from Microsoft experts and much more

Office for Mac is supported in the last three versions of macOS. When a new macOS version is released, it becomes the current version. Also runs on Mac with ARM-based chips via built in emulation mode

Activation - Go to Office.com/setup and sign in with your Microsoft account or create a new account (save your credentials). Enter your product key and follow the instructions

Renew your existing Office 365 Home of Personal subscription: simply purchase Microsoft 365 here and enter your login ID from your current Microsoft account

RRP: £79.99

Deal Price: £49.99

You Save: £30.00 (38%)

www.amazon.co.uk

The all new Microsoft Edge Web Browser is available to download now!

It's time to expect more. The new Microsoft Edge is now available for download on all supported versions of Windows, macOS, Android and iOS in more than ninety languages.

Insiders, thank you for joining our journey to build the new Microsoft Edge. There have been millions of downloads of the prerelease builds by the Microsoft Edge community. We couldn't have done it without you. We will continue to engage with the Insider community to make Microsoft Edge the browser that puts the web to work for you.

So, what's the difference between old & new Edge? On 6th December 2018, Microsoft announced its intent to base Edge on the Chromium source code, using the same rendering engine as Google Chrome but with "enhancements" developed by Microsoft.

www.microsoft.com

Coming soon: Microsoft 365 pricing and Packaging Updates

Microsoft is introducing price changes for commercial and non-profit Microsoft 365 suites, with and without Teams, from 1st July 2026.

On December 4, Microsoft announced a global price and packaging update for select Microsoft 365 commercial suites and standalone components, including Enterprise, Business, Frontline, and Government commercial equivalents. Standalone Microsoft Teams and Copilot SKUs are not included in this update. See timing details below.

Pricing updates take effect July 1, 2026.

Packaging updates begin rolling out in June 2026.

Existing customers remain on current pricing until renewal.

Customers will receive at least 30 days notice in Message Center before packaging changes become available in their tenant.

Answers to common questions about Microsoft 365 commercial pricing and packaging updates can be found here.

Commercial Pricing Update: Details of the new pricing (as of July 1, 2026, in USD) for commercial customers are provided in the tables below. Please note: This pricelist pricing is subject to change and may vary by country and currency. To learn more about these changes, please refer to the official announcement.

www.microsoft.com

Microsoft's New Windows AI Feature Comes With Warnings About Malware and Data Theft

ITSFOSS.COM - If you ask me, Microsoft has been one of the biggest driving forces behind Linux adoption in recent years. The way they've been handling Windows, with its forced updates, aggressive telemetry, and questionable AI features, has sent more people to Linux than any marketing campaign ever could.

And they are at it again with a new Artificial intelligence feature that could be tricked into installing malware on your system.

Microsoft is rolling out a new experimental feature called "Copilot Actions" to Windows Insiders. They pitch it as an AI agent that handles tasks you describe to it. Organize vacation photos, sort your Downloads folder, extract info from PDFs, that sort of thing.

It is currently available in Windows 11 Insider builds (version 26220.7262) as part of Copilot Labs and is off by default, requiring admin access to set it up.

But here's the catch. Copilot Actions isn't just suggesting what to do. It runs in a separate environment called "Agent Workspace" with its unique user account, clicking through apps and working on your files.

Microsoft says it has "capabilities like its own desktop" and can "interact with apps in parallel to your own session." And that's where the problems start.

In a support document, Microsoft admits that features like Copilot Actions introduce "novel security risks." They warn about cross-prompt injection (XPIA), where malicious content in documents or UI elements can override the AI's instructions.

The result? "Unintended actions like data exfiltration or malware installation."

Yeah, you read that right. Microsoft is shipping a feature that could be tricked into installing malware on your system.

Microsoft's own warning hits hard: "We recommend that you only enable this feature if you understand the security implications."

www.itsfoss.com

Microsoft confirms recent Windows 11 updates break taskbar

 

Windows 11 versions 22H2 and 23H2 recently received a non-security update with a bunch of new features and small fixes. Sadly, KB5039302 turned out to be a real troublemaker. Microsoft has already confirmed that it causes infinite restarts on certain systems, and now, there is another known bug.

Microsoft published a new message on its official Windows Health Dashboard website to warn users that KB5039302 is breaking the taskbar on specific Windows 11 editions, namely Windows N.

For those unfamiliar, Windows N is a special version of the operating system with a bunch of media features removed, such as the Windows Media Player app. Microsoft also said that the bug affects customers with regular editions who turned off media features in the "Turn Windows features on or off" UI.

According to Microsoft and the official documentation, affected customers cannot interact with the taskbar, while the rest of the UI and File Explorer continue operating as usual:

After installing the June 2024 Windows preview update (KB5039302), released June 25, 2024, you are likely to face issues with the Taskbar. This issue is only expected to occur if you are using a Windows N edition device or if you turn off the ‘Media Features’ via Control Panel->Programs-> Programs and Features -> Turn Windows features on or off. N editions of Windows include the same functionality as other editions of Windows, except for media-related technologies, Windows Media Player, and certain preinstalled media apps.

You might not be able to view or interact with the Taskbar after logging in to your device once the update is installed. Other applications like File Explorer, Desktop and Settings will continue to work.

Microsoft is working on a resolution, which will be available in a future update. As a reminder, KB5039302 is no longer available for download - Microsoft pulled it after confirming reports about infinite restarts.

www.neowin.net