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Meta adds privacy feature to WhatsApp days after US House ban

4 hodiny 29 min zpět

WhatsApp is adding a privacy feature to WhatsApp just days after reports emerged that Meta’s messaging app had been banned on government devices used by staffers at the US House of Representatives.

The feature can generate quick summaries of the latest messages WhatsApp users receive on their devices. The company added a unique twist — the summaries will be private and not visible to Meta or unauthorized users.

“You can get an idea of what is happening before reading the details in your unread messages,” Meta explained in a blog entry Wednesday.

The summaries are generated using Meta’s generative AI (genAI) technology, which is making its way into more applications. The company has already added it into the interfaces for WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram and is hiring engineers from rival genAI companies. It recently acquired Scale AI for $14.3 billion.

Privacy is a critical aspect of the feature, Meta stressed. “No one else in the chat can see that you summarized unread messages either. This means your privacy is protected at all times,” the company said.

Meta has had its struggles with privacy features in the past. This week, WhatsApp was reportedly banned on government devices used by House staffers due to security concerns.

But apparently Meta is looking to reverse that trend by creating secure AI environments that lock down the data from which the summaries are generated. It does so using a technology called “Private Processing” where “no one except you and the people you’re talking to can access or share your personal messages, not even Meta or WhatsApp,” Meta wrote in a briefing about the technology.)

Users can request a private computing environment, which is built on an emerging technology called confidential computing. The technology creates a secure enclave in which data is stored, AI summaries are generated and then served to users who can unlock the information.

A number of chipmakers are implementing confidential computing technology into their components. Intel chips can create a secure room in which data is accessible only to people with the right keys. Nvidia offers similar confidential computing technology in its GPUs. And Google Cloud’s Gemini uses the technology so companies can deploy the AI model in private infrastructure. And Apple has Private Cloud Compute, where much of the customer data and AI queries are kept private to customers and not visible to Apple.

Using genAI processing to summarize personal messages marks the first time Meta has applied Private Processing, Meta said. “We expect there will be others where the same or similar infrastructure might be beneficial in processing user requests,” the company explained.

Meta last week added secure keys to Facebook messaging, which provides an extra authentication layer for users to access messages.

There have been concerns about genAI companies using customer data to train models. Data privacy and genAI has also been a topic in sovereign AI, where individual nations have their own privacy and data residency regulations.

Kategorie: Hacking & Security

Google Docs cheat sheet: How to get started

4 hodiny 50 min zpět

Google Docs is a powerful word processor that you use through your web browser. It’s integrated with Google Drive to store your documents in the cloud. In addition to the Docs web app, there are mobile apps for Android and iOS.

Anyone with a Google account can use Google Docs for free. It’s also available with Google Workspace — Google’s subscription-based online collection of office apps that also includes Gmail, Google Slides, Google Sheets, and more — with more advanced features.

This guide will get you started with the Google Docs web app and show you how to share and collaborate on your documents with other people.

We’ll also cover a few Gemini (Google’s generative AI assistant) features that are now integrated with Google Docs. Gemini tools are available in Google Docs with a Google Workspace Business Standard or greater plan, a Google AI Pro or greater plan, or if you sign up for Google Workspace Labs with your Google account.

[ See more Google Workspace tips and tutorials ]

Create or open a document

To start a new document or open one you’ve already saved in Google Drive, you’ll need to sign in to your Google or Google Workspace account. If you haven’t signed in yet, you’ll be prompted to do so when you click either link below.

Create a new document

From the Google Docs home screen: To start a new document, click the Blank thumbnail or select a template to the right. To see more templates that you can insert into your document and customize to your needs, click the Template gallery button in the upper-right corner of the screen; click any thumbnail to start a new document in that template.

The top of the Google Docs home screen, with templates across the top and stored documents listed below.

Howard Wen / Foundry

From the Google Drive home screen: To start a new blank document, click the New button at the upper-left of the screen and then click Google Docs. If you want to select a template to start a new document, click the New button, then move the cursor over the > to the right of “Google Docs” and select From a template. The Google Docs home screen will open, showing its full template gallery.

Creating a new Docs document from Google Drive.

Howard Wen / Foundry

From your browser’s address bar: You can immediately launch Google Docs with a new blank document by simply typing docs.new in the address bar of your web browser. (This works if you’re already signed in to your Google or Google Workspace account on the browser.)

Open a document

Documents that are already in your Google Drive storage appear on the Google Docs and Google Drive home screens. Double-click a document, and it will open in Google Docs.

You can use the search box at the top of either home screen to search for your document’s file name or text that is in it. On the Google Docs home screen, you can also click the folder icon on the right above the documents list. This opens a simplified version of your Google Drive inside a panel.

To open a document that someone else has shared with you via Google Drive: On the Google Drive home screen, click Shared with me in the left column, and then double-click the document to open it in Google Docs.

Upload a document for editing in Google Docs

If you have a document on your PC that you want to edit in Google Docs, you have to first upload it. Google Docs supports common text formats such as Microsoft Word (.docx), OpenDocument Format (.odt), Plain Text (.txt), and Rich Text Format (.rtf).

To upload via the Google Docs home screen: Click the folder icon on the right above the documents list, then click the Upload tab on the panel that opens. You can drag-and-drop the document onto this panel or browse your PC’s storage drive to find and select the document. The file is saved to your Google Drive in Docs format and opens immediately in the Docs web app.

To upload via the Google Drive home screen: Click New > File upload and select the document from your PC’s drive. The document retains its original formatting.

Working with Microsoft Word documents in Docs

Google Docs supports the ability to edit Word .docx files in their native format. You can edit and collaborate on a Word file right in Docs, with all changes made by you or your collaborators saved directly to the Word file.

To retain the Word format, though, you must upload the file through Google Drive. When you upload a Microsoft Word document through the Google Docs home screen, it is automatically converted to the Docs file format.

When you upload a Word through the Google Drive home screen, on the other hand, it is not automatically converted to Docs file format. So a Word document will retain its format and .docx file extension. In the documents list, Word docs are designated with a W icon instead of the usual Docs icon.

The top document shown here is in Word format.

Howard Wen / Foundry

If you would rather have Word (and other document format) files automatically converted to Docs format when you upload them via Google Drive, click the gear icon in the upper-right corner of the Google Drive home screen and select Settings from the drop-down menu. On the Settings page, scroll down to “Uploads” and check the checkbox marked Convert uploads to Google Docs editor format.

Converting PDF and image files to Docs format

Through Google Drive, you can upload a PDF or image file of a scanned document, then convert it so that you can edit it in Google Docs. The accuracy of this conversion depends on how readable the text is in the PDF or source image.

From the Google Drive home screen, click New > File upload and select the PDF or image file on your PC.

After the file is uploaded, right-click its filename on the Google Drive home screen and select Open with > Google Docs.

Converting a PDF to Google Docs format for editing.

Howard Wen / Foundry

Drive converts the PDF or extracts the text from the image file and opens the result in Google Docs for you to view and edit. This converted version appears listed on your Google Docs and Google Drive home screen as a new Docs document. Note that only the text from the source file is converted; if your PDF has images, those will not appear in the new document.

Work in a document

When you open a new or existing document, the document’s title appears at the top left. To change the title, place the cursor in the title and start typing.

The Google Docs compose/edit screen with a new, blank document.

Howard Wen / Foundry

The menu bar below the document’s title includes the following drop-down menus:

File: commands for taking action on the whole document, such as Make a copy, Share, Rename, Page setup, and Print
Edit: copy, paste, undo, redo, find and replace, and similar
View: lets you change your view of the document and how you interact with it (more on that in a moment)
Insert: insert items into your document, such as an image, table, special character, header or footer, or watermark
Format: format text, paragraphs, and some other elements in your document such as tables
Tools: extras such as getting a word count and translating your document into another language
Extensions: find third-party apps that integrate with Docs and other Workspace apps
Help: search for commands or get help for specific tasks

The toolbar below the menu bar has buttons for the most common word processing functions, such as formatting text and paragraphs, inserting links and pictures, running spell check, and printing.

Note that there is no Save command; Docs automatically saves any changes as soon as you make them.

Tools to help you start writing

When you start a new, blank document, buttons appear along the top of the document area, as shown in the previous screenshot; they’re shortcuts to tools to help you write. (They don’t appear when you load a document that already has content on it.) You can ignore these shortcuts if you want; just start typing and they’ll disappear.

If you’re using Google Docs under a free Google account or Business Starter Workspace plan, you’ll see these shortcuts at the top of a blank document:

Templates: This button opens a pane listing a subset of popular templates from the template gallery you can call up when creating a new document, as covered earlier in the story. To access this pane elsewhere in Google Docs: On the top menu bar, click File > New > From a template.

Meeting notes, Email draft, and More: These buttons all lead to “building blocks,” which are table templates that you can insert into your document. Some also have interactive elements, called “smart chips,” in them. See “How to use smart chips in Google Docs and Sheets” for in-depth information about smart chips and building blocks.

Clicking Meeting notes lets you extract information from an event scheduled on your Google calendar and set it in your document as a table.

The Email draft building block appears as a basic email composition window in your document. Inside each capsule to the right of “To,” “Cc,” and “Bcc,” you enter or select the email address or name of someone in your Google Contacts to insert as a People chip.

Clicking the More button opens the “Building blocks” panel along the right that lists several other building blocks you can insert into your document. There are building blocks for meetings, project management, contact management, and more.

To access building blocks elsewhere in Google Docs: On the top menu bar, click Insert > Building blocks and from the menu that opens, select the building block that you want to insert into your document. Or select View more on this menu to open the “Building blocks” side panel.

If you’re using Google Docs with a paid Workspace plan that includes Gemini, such as Business Standard, then you’ll see these buttons at the top of a blank document:

With a paid Workspace plan, the quick-start buttons for a blank document include the AI-powered “Help me write.”

Howard Wen / Foundry

Help me write: Clicking this opens a pane over your document. You type inside it to prompt Gemini to generate text that you can insert into your document. For details about using Help Me Write, see “How to use Gemini AI to write (and rewrite) in Google Docs and Gmail.”

To access Help Me Write elsewhere in Google Docs: Look for the vertical mini-toolbar along the right of your document. Clicking the Help me write icon at the top of this toolbar will open the “Help me write” pane over your document.

Templates and Meeting notes: These buttons work the same as described above under a free or Business Starter plan.

Cover image: You can embed an image, such as your business logo, that runs along the top of your document as a banner. Clicking this button opens a menu that lets you insert an image file stored on your PC, Google Drive, or Google Photos account, or you can search a stock image repository or enter a link to an image file online. You can also use Gemini to create an image: Select Generate an image and describe what you want it to create.

To access this tool elsewhere in Google Docs: On the top menu bar, click Insert > Cover image.

More: This button works the same as described above under a free or Business Starter plan, opening the “Building blocks” side panel.

The Gemini sidebar

There’s another way to interact with Gemini in Docs: Click the nova star icon at the upper-right corner (next to your Google account profile headshot) to open a Gemini side panel along the right. (If you’re using a free or Business Starter plan, this side panel will show an ad for Gemini and a button you can click to start a trial.)

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The Gemini side panel in Google Docs.

Howard Wen / Foundry

You can use the Gemini sidebar for a variety of tasks, including brainstorming ideas, generating text, summarizing documents, creating lists, and more. See “Google Workspace: 7 great ways to use the Gemini AI sidebar” for detailed instructions and use cases for the Gemini side panel.

Editing, Suggesting, and Viewing modes

When you create or open a document, it is presented in Editing mode, in which you compose or edit your document normally. You can switch to two other modes:

Suggesting mode: Changes to your document appear as colored “suggestions” that can be accepted or rejected. This mode mostly comes into play when you’re collaborating with others; more on that later in this guide.

Viewing mode: You can’t edit the document, only scroll through and read it. Viewing mode can help you focus on reading through a document without being tempted to stop and edit it. You can also share a document with others in a way that limits them to Viewing mode; we’ll cover that in the sharing section of this guide.

To switch among these modes: Click the Editing mode pencil icon at the far right of the toolbar and make your selection. Alternatively, you can select View > Mode from the top menu bar.

Switching to Suggesting mode.

Howard Wen / Foundry

Document tabs

Along the left is the “Document tabs” side panel. (If you don’t see it, click the Show tabs & outlines button at the top left.) It’s a unique feature that lets you build interactive documents in two ways.

Heading links

Your document (whether it’s blank or already has content) is listed in this side panel as “Tab 1.” Click Tab 1 and it will expand down to list any headings that are in your document. When you click a heading in this side panel, your view in the main window will jump to that heading in your document.

You’ll find shortcuts to each heading in your document in the “Document tabs” side panel.

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To add a heading to your document: On the toolbar above your document, click Normal text and from the drop-down menu, select a heading level (Heading 1, Heading 2, etc.) and type in your heading.

In the “Document tabs” side panel, you can rename “Tab 1” by clicking the three-dot icon to its right.

Multiple tab links

You can also add more tabs, where each tab represents a separate section of the document that has its own content and formatting, and switch among them.

For instance, you could have a project management document where one tab shows the project overview and goals, a second tab lists team members and their responsibilities for the project, a third tab is a timeline table, and so on. You could create a separate document for each of those items, but the tabbed setup keeps them more tightly tied together while allowing each section to retain its own unique purpose and formatting.

A document starts with just one tab, called “Tab 1” by default. To add a new tab (“Tab 2”), click the + next to “Document tabs” in the side panel. Your view in the main window switches to a new blank document area that you can put content on.

When you create a new tab, it feels like you’re starting a whole new document, but it’s still part of the same larger document. When you look at the top of the screen, you’ll see that the document title remains the same.

You can click back and forth between these two tabbed sections of the document using the tab links in the “Document tabs” navigation. You can add and navigate to additional tabs the same way.

You can switch between tabs in your document using the left navigation panel.

Howard Wen / Foundry

You can also add a subtab underneath another tab. In the “Document tabs” side panel, hover your cursor over the tab you want to attach a subtab to, click the three-dot icon that appears to its right, and from the menu that opens, select Add subtab.

You’ll quickly realize as you add tabs and subtabs that using the default names (Tab 1, Tab 2, etc.) isn’t very helpful. To rename any tab to something more meaningful, click its three-dot icon, select Rename, and type in a new name.

Links to headings across tabs

You can insert a link in one tab that goes to a heading that’s in another tab in your document. For example, a link in Tab 1 takes you to a specific heading in Tab 3.

To create this type of link: Select a tab in the “Document tabs” side panel. In the main window showing the document, right-click on a heading. From the menu that opens, select Copy heading link.

Now select another tab in the “Document tabs” side panel. In the main window, paste the link somewhere in the document. A long URL appears with a bar next to it that contains the title of your document. Click this bar or press the Tab key on your keyboard to insert the link in your document; it will appear as a capsule with your document’s title in it.

When you (or anyone you’ve shared your document with) click the capsule you inserted, a small bar opens showing the heading. Click it, and the view in the main window will jump to this heading in this other tabbed document.

Click the MILESTONES link in the main document window to go to that heading on Tab 1.

Howard Wen / Foundry

Share your document

Through Google Docs or Google Drive, you can share a document for others to view or edit.

From the Google Docs screen where you’re editing your document: Click the Share button at the upper right. Or, from the Google Drive home screen: Right-click the filename of your document and select Share > Share from the menu that opens. Either way, the Share pane opens.

Sharing a document in Google Docs.

Howard Wen / Foundry

Google lets you share your document privately by inviting specific people to access it, or publicly, which means anyone with the link to it can open it. In most cases, business users will want to share their documents privately with specific colleagues. But there may be a few times when you need to share it publicly, such as when you’re seeking public comments on a document.

Note: In managed business environments, your administrators may limit your sharing options. For example, you might not be allowed to share a document link publicly — or even share it privately with people outside your organization.

Share your document privately (only certain people can access it)

On the Share pane, type in the names or email addresses of the people you want to collaborate with on the document. The Share pane changes to a new view where you can add more people and change their access permissions for the doc. You can also type in a brief message to them.

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Setting permissions for a file being shared privately.

Howard Wen / Foundry

By default, every person you add is given Editor access to your document. You can change this by clicking Editor at the right of the invitees’ names and selecting another option from the dropdown that opens.

Editor means they can change your document, add comments to it, and reshare it with other people.
Commenter means they can view your document and add comments to it, but they cannot change it.
Viewer means they can view your document, but they cannot change it or add comments to it.

Keep in mind that this setting applies to everyone you’re currently inviting to the document.

When you’re done, click Send. Everyone you’ve added will receive an email with a link they can click to access the document.

Change, limit, or revoke permissions

You can change anyone’s permissions for a document at any time by reopening the Share pane for the document. It will list everyone who has access to the document. Click the dropdown next to their name to change their permission level or remove their access entirely, then click Save.

You can also limit the overall permissions for a document somewhat by clicking the gear icon in the upper right of the Share pane:

Unchecking the first box prevents others at the Editor level from resharing the document or changing other collaborators’ permission level.
Unchecking the second box prevents anyone with Viewer or Commenter status from downloading, printing, or copying the document.

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Unchecking these boxes curbs some of the default permissions for editors, viewers, and commenters.

Howard Wen / Foundry

Set an expiration date

Under a Google Workspace plan, you can also deny access to a person you’ve shared your document with on a specified date.

Click the down arrow to the right of a collaborator’s name and select Add expiration. Then, to the right of “Access expires…,” click the pencil icon and select an expiration date (and time if you want) on the pop-up calendar. It can be within one year of the current date.

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Setting an expiration date for a person’s access to a document.

Howard Wen / Foundry

Share your document publicly (anyone can access it)

At the bottom of the Share pane is a Copy link button that you can click to copy the link to your document. By default, this link is restricted to those you invite to the document.

To change it to a public link: Click Restricted and select Anyone with the link from the dropdown menu.

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Changing permissions for a public link to a document.

Howard Wen / Foundry

By default, this link has Viewer access assigned to it. To allow anyone with the link to comment on or edit your document: Click the Viewer dropdown to the right and then select Commenter or Editor.

After you’ve made your above selections, click the Copy link button. You can now paste this link to your document into an email, direct message, or document, or post it on a public forum or social media. Remember that anyone who sees and clicks this link will be able to access your document.

To turn off the public link to your document, reopen the Share pane and click Anyone with the link. From the dropdown that opens, select Restricted. Then click the Done button.

Status of your shared documents

On your Google Drive or Google Docs home screen, your documents that are being shared either privately with others or as public links are marked by an icon of two silhouetted heads. (If you have the home screen of Google Drive set to “Grid layout,” this icon won’t appear with the thumbnail or filename of a shared document.)

The double silhouette icon to the right indicates that this is a shared document.

Howard Wen / Foundry

Collaborate on your document

The people you’ve shared your document with can collaborate with you on it if they’ve been designated as an Editor or Commenter. See “How to collaborate on a document” in our Google Drive collaboration guide for step-by-step instructions on how to add and review comments, edit a document, and collaborate on a document in real time.

One thing that can’t be stressed enough is how helpful it is if you and your collaborators use Suggesting mode. (Commenters will automatically be in Suggesting mode when they open the document, but Editors need to turn it on by clicking the pencil icon at the upper right and selecting Suggesting.)

If multiple people make changes to your document in Editing mode, it can become difficult to keep track of who did what. Under Suggesting mode, though, each collaborator’s text additions appear in a different color. So if they add an image, the border of that image will be the same color as their text color. Anything they delete will have a strikethrough in their assigned color.

Suggesting mode makes it easy to see who made each change to a shared document.

Howard Wen / Foundry

Note cards will appear to the right of your document; each shows a suggested change made to your document (and by whom and when the change happened). To accept the suggestion on a card, click the checkmark; to reject it, click the X.

To view your document with or without all the edits suggested by your collaborators: Click Tools > Review suggested edits from the top menu bar. A box will open at the upper-right corner. To view your document with the suggested edits merged in, click the Show suggested edits dropdown and select Preview “Accept all.” To view without the suggested edits, select Preview “Reject all.”

Reviewing suggested changes.

Howard Wen / Foundry

If you want to accept or reject all suggestions at once without going through them one by one, you can click the Accept All or Reject All buttons on this pane.

Whenever your document gets a suggested edit by a collaborator, an updated tally appears next to its filename, or on the upper-right of its thumbnail, on your Google Docs or Google Drive home screen.

Recover older versions of a document

Mistakes happen, and you may want to undo changes you or others have made to a document. To look up older versions of an open document, click File > Version history > See version history.

A panel opens on the right that shows a list of older versions of your document, organized by date and time. To see what an earlier version of the doc looks like, click its date or version name in the list. That version will appear in the main window.

Viewing an earlier version of a document.

Howard Wen / Foundry

If you want to use this older version to replace the current version of your document, click the blue Restore this version button at the upper-left of the screen. This restored version will then appear at the top of the version history list.

If you want to give an older version a unique name, click its date. You’ll be prompted to type in words to replace the date. The version’s date and time will then appear in smaller type underneath its new name.

Download and export your document to Word or PDF

You can download a document and convert it to PDF, .docx (if it’s not already a Word document), or another text format such as OpenDocument Format (.odt), Plain Text (.txt) or Rich Text Format (.rtf).

With the document open, select File > Download from the top menu bar and choose a file format. The document will be saved to your PC’s storage drive in that format.

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Downloading and converting a document to Word format.

Howard Wen / Foundry

Alternatively, you can select File > Email and then pick either Email this file or Email collaborators. This action will open a panel that lets you email your document as an attachment. PDF is the default, but you can click the PDF dropdown and choose Word or another format.

A third option under File > Email is Email draft. This inserts the Email draft building block discussed earlier in the story.

Use the Google Docs mobile app

The Docs mobile apps for Android, iPhone, and iPad have a simplified interface to accommodate small touchscreens. Except for version history, the same features described in this guide are in the mobile apps.

For example, through the Docs mobile apps, you can share documents (see “How to use Google Drive for collaboration” for instructions) and work on them with other people. This includes doing so under Suggesting mode.

Toolbars along the top and bottom of the app let you take actions such as formatting text and inserting images or tables. Clicking the three-dot icon at the far right of the top toolbar opens more options including turning on Suggesting mode, running spell check, and sharing your document.

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Using the Google Docs Android app.

Howard Wen / Foundry

It can be tedious to work on a document on a small phone screen, but the Docs mobile app is handy for making quick edits or keeping up to date on changes to your document made by other people. Any changes you make to a document through the mobile app are automatically saved to your Google Drive. They will show up the next time you open the document from the Google Docs or Google Drive home screen in your PC’s web browser.

Use keyboard shortcuts

Save time in Google Docs by using keyboard shortcuts to execute tasks. Below are some of the most useful shortcuts. For more, select Help > Keyboard shortcuts from the top menu bar in Google Docs, or see Google’s extensive list of Google Docs keyboard shortcuts.

Handy Google Docs keyboard shortcuts BASICSActionChrome OS / Windows shortcutmacOS shortcutCopyCtrl-C⌘-CCutCtrl-X⌘-XPasteCtrl-V⌘-VUndoCtrl-Z⌘-ZRedoCtrl-Y⌘-YInsert or edit linkCtrl-K⌘-KOpen linkAlt-EnterOption-EnterFindCtrl-F⌘-FFind and replaceCtrl-H⌘-Shift-HSelect allCtrl-A⌘-AInsert commentCtrl-Alt-M⌘-Option-MCheck spelling and grammarCtrl-Alt-X⌘-Option-XOpen dictionaryCtrl-Shift-Y⌘-Shift-YPrintCtrl-P⌘-PTEXT AND PARAGRAPH FORMATTINGActionChrome OS / Windows shortcutmacOS shortcutBoldCtrl-B⌘-BItalicizeCtrl-I⌘-IUnderlineCtrl-U⌘-UNumbered listCtrl-Shift-7⌘-Shift-7Bulleted listCtrl-Shift-8⌘-Shift-8Align text leftCtrl-Shift-L⌘-Shift-LAlign text rightCtrl-Shift-R⌘-Shift-RCopy text formattingCtrl-Alt-C⌘-Option-CPaste text formattingCtrl-Alt-V⌘-Option-V Source: Google

This article was originally published in May 2019 and most recently updated in June 2025.

See more Google Workspace tips and tutorials

Kategorie: Hacking & Security

Windows 10: A guide to the updates

6 hodin 43 min zpět

The launch of a major Windows 10 update isn’t the end of a process — it’s really just the beginning. As soon as one of Microsoft’s feature updates (such as Windows 10 version 22H2) is released, the company quickly gets to work on improving it by fixing bugs, releasing security patches, and occasionally adding new features.

In this story we summarize what you need to know about each update released to the public for the most recent versions of Windows 10 — versions 22H2 and 21H2. (Microsoft releases updates for those two versions together.) For each build, we’ve included the date of its initial release and a link to Microsoft’s announcement about it. The most recent updates appear first.

For details about how to install and manage Windows updates, see “How to handle Windows 10 and 11 updates.” If you’re looking for information about Insider Program previews for upcoming feature releases of Windows 10, see “Windows 10 Insider Previews: A guide to the builds.”

Updates to Windows 10 versions 21H2 and 22H2 KB5061087 (OS Build 19045.6036) Preview

Release date: June 24, 2025

This build fixes a variety of bugs, including one that caused jump lists to disappear from the Start menu.

There is one known issue in this build, in which blurry or unclear CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) text appears when displayed at 96 DPI (100% scaling) in Chromium-based browsers such as Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome.

(Get more info about KB5061087 Preview.)

KB5060533 (OS Builds 19044.5965 and 19045.5065)

Release date: June 10, 2025

The update has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and June 2025 Security Updates.

Note: In this build there are reports of blurry or unclear CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) text when displayed at 96 DPI (100% scaling) in Chromium-based browsers such as Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome. The issue is due to limited pixel density at 96 DPI, which can reduce the clarity and alignment of CJK characters. Increasing the display scaling improves clarity by enhancing text rendering.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5060533.)

KB5058481 (OS Build 19045.5917) Preview

Release date: May 28, 2025

This build offers several new features, including one that brings back the clock view that displays seconds on the calendar. It also fixes several bugs, including one in which in GDI/GDI+, some GB18030-2022 characters in plane 2 were not rendered.

(Get more info about KB5058481 Preview.)

KB5061979 (OS Builds 19044.5859 and 19045.5859)

Release date: May 27, 2025

This out-of-band update fixes a bug in the direct send path for a guest physical address (GPA). This issue caused confidential virtual machines running on Hyper-V with Windows Server 2022 to intermittently stop responding or restart unexpectedly. As a result, service availability was affected, and manual intervention was required. This problem primarily impacted Azure confidential VMs.

(Get more info about KB5061979.)

KB5061768 (OS Builds 19044.5856 and 19045.5856)

Release date: May 19, 2025

This out-of-band build fixes a bug in the recent May 13 Patch Tuesday build (KB5058379) that caused the Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS) process to terminate unexpectedly, triggering an Automatic Repair prompting for the BitLocker recovery key.

(Get more info about KB5061768.)

KB5058379 (OS Builds 19044.5854 and 19045.5854)

Release date: May 13, 2025

The update improves Secure Boot Advanced Targeting (SBAT) and Linux Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) for the detection of Linux systems. It also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and May 2025 Security Updates.

(Get more info about KB5058379.)

KB5055612 (OS Build 19045.5796) Preview

Release date: April 22, 2025

This build fixes two bugs, including one in which the check for GPU paravirtualization was case-sensitive in Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL2). This issue might have potentially caused GPU paravirtualization support to fail.

There are two known issues in this build, including one in which certain Citrix components installed might be unable to complete installation of the January 2025 Windows security update. This issue was observed on devices with Citrix Session Recording Agent (SRA) version 2411.

(Get more info about KB5055612 Preview.)

KB5055518 (OS Builds 19044.5737 and 19045.5737)

Release date: April 8, 2025

The update has a broad variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and April 2025 Security Updates.

There are two known issues in this build including one in which devices that have certain Citrix components installed might be unable to complete installation of the January 2025 Windows security update.

(Get more info about KB5055518.)

KB5053643 (OS Build 19045.5679) Preview

Release date: March 25, 2025

This build fixes several bugs, including one in which USB-connected dual-mode printers that support both US Print and IPP Over USB protocols unexpectedly output incorrect or unwanted text, and another in which thumbnails in File Explorer crashed, resulting in white pages appearing instead of the actual thumbnails.

(Get more info about KB5053643 Preview.)

KB5053606 (OS Builds 19044.5608 and 19045.5608)

Release date: March 11, 2025

The update has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and March 2025 Security Updates.

There are two known issues in this build, including one in which devices that have certain Citrix components installed might be unable to complete installation of the January 2025 Windows security update.

(Get more info about KB5053606.)

KB5052077 (OS Build 19045.5555) Preview

Release date: February 25, 2025

This build fixes several bugs, including one in which the OpenSSH (Open Secure Shell) service failed to start, preventing SSH connections.

(Get more info about KB5052077 Preview.)

KB5051974 (OS Builds 19044.5487 and 19045.5487)

Release date: February 11, 2025

The update has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and February 2025 Security Updates.

There are three known issues in this build, including one in which devices that have certain Citrix components installed might be unable to complete installation of the January 2025 Windows security update.

(Get more info about KB5051974.)

KB5050081 (OS Build 19045.5440) Preview

Release date: January 28, 2025

This build includes the new version of the Outlook app. IT admins can learn how to manage the new version at the Microsoft Learn page “Control the installation and use of new Outlook.”

The build also fixes a variety of bugs, including one in which the Capture Service and Snipping Tool stopped responding when you pressed Windows logo key + Shift + S several times while Narrator was on.

There are two known issues in this build, including one in which the OpenSSH (Open Secure Shell) service fails to start, preventing SSH connections. In the other one, PCs that have certain Citrix components installed might be unable to complete installation of the January 2025 Windows security update.

(Get more info about KB5050081 Preview.)

KB5049981 (OS Builds 19044.5371 and 19045.5371)

Release date: January 14, 2025

The update has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and January 2025 Security Updates.

(Get more info about KB5049981.)

KB5048652 (OS Builds 19044.5247 and 19045.5247)

Release date: December 10, 2024

The update has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and December 2024 Security Updates.

(Get more info about KB5048652.)

KB5046714 (OS Build 19045.5198) Preview

Release date: November 21, 2024

This build fixes a variety of bugs, including one in which Win32 shortcuts did not back up to the cloud.

(Get more info about KB5046714 Preview.)

KB5046613 (OS Builds 19044.5131 and 19045.5131)

Release date: November 12, 2024

This update fixes a bug in which some games did not start or stopped responding after you installed KB5044384. This occurred because some games use a third-party DRM component that are not compatible with that update. This update makes changes to support those games while the game developers address the DRM issue.

The update also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and November 2024 Security Updates.

(Get more info about KB5046613.)

KB5045594 (OS Build 19045.5073) Preview

Release date: October 22, 2024

This build starts the rollout of the new account manager on the Start menu that makes it easy to view your account and access account settings. To change to a different user, select the ellipsis (…) next to “Sign out.” Not everyone will see this change yet, because it’s rolling out gradually.

The build also fixes a variety of bugs, including one in which a vmswitch triggers a stop error. This occurs when you use Load Balancing and Failover (LBFO) teaming with two virtual switches on a virtual machine (VM). In this case, one virtual switch uses single root Input/Output virtualization (SR-IOV).

(Get more info about KB5045594 Preview.)

KB5044273 (OS Builds 19044.5011 and 19045.5011)

Release date: October 8, 2024

This update has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and October 2024 Security Updates.

(Get more info about KB5044273.)

KB5043131 (OS Build 19045.4957) Preview

Release date: September 24, 2024

This build fixes several bugs, including one in which playback of some media might have stopped when you use certain surround sound technology, and another in which Windows server stopped responding when you used apps like File Explorer and the taskbar.

There is one known issue in this update, in which you might be unable to change your user account profile picture.

(Get more info about Windows 10 22H2 KB5043131 Preview).

KB5043064 (OS Builds 19044.4894 and 19045.4894)

Release date: September 10, 2024

This update has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and September 2024 Security Updates.

(Get more info about KB5043064.)

KB5041582 (OS Build 19045.4842) Preview

Release date: August 29, 2024

This build fixes several bugs, including one in which when a combo box had input focus, a memory leak could occur when you closed that window.

There is one known issue in this update, in which you might be unable to change your user account profile picture.

(Get more info about KB5041582 Preview.)

KB5041580 (OS Builds 19044.4780 and 19045.4780)

Release date: August 13, 2024

This release has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and August 2024 Security Updates.

(Get more info about KB5041580.)

KB5040525 (OS Build 19045.4717) Preview

Release date: July 23, 2024

This build fixes a variety of bugs, including one in which the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) send code caused systems to stop responding during routine tasks, such as file transfers. This issue led to an extended send loop.

There is one known issue in this update, in which you might be unable to change your user account profile picture.

(Get more info about KB5040525 Preview.)

KB5040427 (OS Builds 19044.4651 and 19045.4651)

Release date: July 9, 2024

This update has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and July 2024 Security Updates.

There are two known issues in this build, including one in which you might be unable to change your user account profile picture.

(Get more info about KB5040427.)

Windows 10 2022 Update (version 22H2)

Release date: October 18, 2022

The Windows 10 2022 Update is, in Microsoft’s words, “a scoped release focused on quality improvements to the overall Windows experience in existing feature areas such as quality, productivity and security.” In other words, there’s not much new here, although Computerworld blogger Susan Bradley did uncover a handful of new group policies in the release.

Home and Pro editions of the 2022 Update will receive 18 months of servicing, and Enterprise and Education editions will have 30 months of servicing.

To install the update, go to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update and select Check for updates. If the update appears, select Download to install it.

(Get more info about the Windows 10 2022 Update.)

Windows 10 November 2021 Update (version 21H2)

Release date: November 16, 2021

Version 21H2, called the Windows 10 November 2021 Update, is the second feature update to Windows 10 released in 2021. Here’s a quick summary of what’s new:

Wi-Fi security has been enhanced with WPA3 H2E standards support.
GPU compute support has been added in the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) and Azure IoT Edge for Linux on Windows (EFLOW) deployments for machine learning and other compute-intensive workflows.

There are also a number of features designed for IT and business:

Windows Hello for Business has a new deployment method called cloud trust that simplifies passwordless deployments.
For increased security, there have been changes to the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) VPN APIs, which includes the ability to implement common web-based authentication schemes and to reuse existing protocols.
Apps can now be provisioned from Azure Virtual Desktop. This allows those apps to run just like local apps, including the ability to copy and paste between remote and local apps.
The release closes the gap between Group Policy and mobile device management (MDM) settings. The device configuration settings catalog has been updated to list more than 1,400 settings previously not available for configuration via MDM. The new MDM policies include administrative template (ADMX) policies, such as App Compat, Event Forwarding, Servicing, and Task Scheduler.
An upgrade to Windows 10 Enterprise includes Universal Print, which now supports print jobs of up to 1GB or a series of print jobs from an individual user that add up to 1GB within any 15-minute period.
Universal Print integrates with OneDrive for web and Excel for web. This allows users of any browser or device connected to the internet to print documents hosted in OneDrive for web to a printer in their organization without installing printer drivers on their devices.

Microsoft has also announced that starting with this release, Windows 10 will get feature updates only once a year.

Windows 10 May 2021 Update (version 21H1)

Release date: May 18, 2021

Version 21H1, called the Windows 10 May 2021 Update, is the most recent update to Windows 10. This is a relatively minor update, but it does have a few new features.

Here’s a quick summary of what’s new in 21H1:

Windows Hello multicamera support: If you have an external Windows Hello camera for your PC, you can set the external camera as your default camera. (Windows Hello is used for signing into PCs.) Why should this change matter to you? If you have an external camera, you probably bought it because it’s superior to the built-in, internal one on your computer. So with this change, you’ll be able to use the more accurate camera for logging into your PC.
Improved Windows Defender Application Guard performance: Windows Defender Application Guard lets administrators configure applications to run in an isolated, virtualized container for improved security. With this change, documents will open more quickly. It can currently take up to a minute to open an Office document in it.
Better Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) Group Policy Service support: Microsoft has made it easier for administrators to change settings to support remote work.

Windows 10 October 2020 Update (version 20H2)

Release date: October 20, 2020

Version 20H2, called the Windows 10 October 2020 Update, is the most recent update to Windows 10. This is a relatively minor update but does have a few new features.

Here’s a quick summary of what’s new in 20H2:

The new Chromium-based version of the Microsoft Edge browser is now built directly into Windows 10.
The System page of Control Panel has been removed. Those settings have been moved to the Settings app.
The Start menu’s tiled background will match your choice of Windows themes. So the tiled background will be light if you’re using the Windows 10 light theme and dark if you’re using the Windows 10 dark theme.
When you use Alt-Tab, Edge will now display each tab in your browser in a different Alt-Tab window. Previously, when you used Alt-Tab, Edge would get only a single window. You can change this new behavior by going to Settings > System > Multitasking.
When you pin a site to the taskbar in Edge, you can click or mouse over its icon to see all your browser tabs that are open for that website.
When you detach a keyboard on a 2-in-1 device, the device will automatically switch to the tablet-based interface. Previously, you were asked whether you wanted to switch. You can change that setting by going to Settings > System > Tablet.
The Your Phone app gets a variety of new features for some Samsung devices. When using one of the devices, you can interact with the Android apps on your phone from the Your Phone app on Windows 10.

What IT needs to know: Windows 10 version 20H2 also has a variety of small changes of note for sysadmins and those in IT.

IT professionals who administer multiple mobile devices get a new Modern Device Management (MDM) “Local Users and Groups” settings policy that mirrors options available for devices that are managed through Group Policy.
Windows Autopilot, used to set up and configure devices in enterprises, has gained a variety of small enhancement, including better deployment of HoloLens devices, the addition of co-management policies, enhancements to Autopilot deployment reporting, and the ability to reuse Configuration Manager task sequences to configure devices.
Microsoft Defender Application Guard now supports Office. This allows untrusted Office documents from outside an enterprise to launch in an isolated container to stop potentially malicious content from compromising computers or exploiting personal information found on them.
Latest Cumulative Updates (LCUs) and Servicing Stack Updates (SSUs) have been combined into a single cumulative monthly update, available via Microsoft Catalog or Windows Server Update Services.
Biometric sign-on has been made more secure. Windows Hello now has support for virtualization-based security for certain fingerprint and face sensors, which protects, isolates, and secures a user’s biometric authentication data.

For more details, see Microsoft’s “What’s new for IT pros in Windows 10, version 20H2.”

Windows 10 May 2020 Update (version 2004)

Release date: May 27, 2020

Version 2004, called the Windows 10 May 2020 Update, is the most recent update to Windows 10. This is a relatively minor update but does have a variety of new features for both users and system administrators. For more details, see: “Review: Windows 10 May 2020 Update delivers little tweaks that add up to… well, not a lot.”

Here’s a quick summary of what’s new in 2004:

Cortana now runs as a standalone app in a resizable window. It also loses a variety of capabilities, such as playing music, controlling home devices, and working on the lock screen.
Task Manager now displays new information, including the temperature of your GPU and your disk type.
Settings gets many small tweaks, including adding a header with account information, and a redone network status page that combines information that used to be found on multiple pages, such as your IP address, current connection properties and data usage.
The Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) gets more features. It now uses a real Linux kernel, and is faster than previously.
IT can now take advantage of Windows Hello biometrics logins rather than passwords, by setting that up as the default on enterprise devices.
Installing and setting up Windows for others has been made easier thanks to new controls added to Dynamic Update, which can lead to less downtime during installation for users.
A variety of new commands have been given to PowerShell for Delivery Optimization, a Windows networking service that reduces bandwidth consumption by sharing the work of downloading update and upgrade packages among multiple devices in business deployments.
The security of the Chromium version of Edge has been improved, thanks to porting Application Guard to it.

Windows 10 November 2019 Update (version 1909)

Release date: Nov. 12, 2019

Version 1909, called the Windows 10 November 2019 Update, is the most recent update to Windows 10. There are very few new features in this update, making it more like a service pack of old than a feature update. At this point it’s not clear whether in the future there will be one full-featured update and one service-pack-like update per year or whether Microsoft will go back to its two-feature-updates-a-year schedule. For more details, see “What we know so far about the unusual Windows 10 1909” and “5 unanswered questions about Windows 10 1909.”

Here’s a quick summary of what’s new for users in 1909.

It lets you create calendar events straight from the taskbar. To do it, click the time on the taskbar and you’ll open the Calendar view. Now click a date and time, then type the event’s name into the text box. You’ll also be able to choose the date, time and location.
When you type a search into the search box, it will now search through files in your OneDrive account as well as on your PC. Also, as you type, a drop-down menu with suggested files appears. Click a file to open it.
Voice assistants in addition to Cortana, including Amazon’s Alexa, will be able to run on Windows 10’s lock screen.
Under-the-hood improvements should speed up the performance of some PCs, as well as increase the battery life in some laptops.
The Start Menu has gotten minor tweaks. When you hover over items in the navigation pane on the left side of the menu, the items clearly show what you’re about to click.

What IT needs to know: The following features in 1909 are of note for IT staff.

Windows containers no longer need to have their host and container versions match. That requirement restricted Windows from supporting mixed-version container pod scenarios. Previously, containers from older versions of Windows 10 couldn’t be run on newer versions of Windows 10. In this update, it’s possible, so that a container made using 1903, for example, can be run on 1909.
Windows Defender Credential Guard, which protects enterprise users’ logins and credentials against theft, is now available for ARM64 devices. Some Windows 10 convertible PCs use ARM64.
Enterprises can now use Microsoft’s Intune enterprise mobility management (EMM) service to allow devices running Windows 10 in S mode to install and run Win32 (desktop) apps. Before this, S Mode only allowed devices to run apps from the Microsoft Store. Microsoft Store apps don’t run on the desktop.
The security of BitLocker encryption has been improved. Whenever BitLocker is used to encrypt a device, a recovery key is created, but before this security improvement, it was possible for an unauthorized user to get access to the recovery key and decrypt the device. Now, PCs have additional security if a key is exposed. Here’s how Microsoft explains the change: “Key-rolling or Key-rotation feature enables secure rolling of Recovery passwords on MDM managed AAD devices upon on demand request from Microsoft Intune/MDM tools or upon every time recovery password is used to unlock the BitLocker protected drive.”

There are two known issues in this update: one in which some users cannot set Win32 program defaults for certain app and file type combinations using the Open with… command or Settings > Apps > Default apps, and another in which Microsoft Notepad and other Win32 programs cannot be set as default applications.

(Get more info about KB4464455.)

Windows 10 October 2018 Update (version 1809)

Release date: October 2, 2018; paused October 5; re-released November 13, 2018

Version 1809, called the Windows 10 October 2018 Update, is the feature update that preceded the May 2019 Update. Here’s a quick summary of what’s new for users in it. (For more details, see our full review.)

A new, powered-up Windows Clipboard can hold multiple clips, store clips permanently, let you preview clips and choose which one you’d like to paste into a document, and share clips across Windows 10 devices.
A new screenshot and annotation tool called Snip & Sketch lets you capture and annotate the entire screen, a rectangular portion of the screen or a freehand-drawn portion of it. After you take a screen capture, you can annotate it and then save it to a file, copy it to the Clipboard, open it in another program or share it via email, social media and other methods.
Storage Sense, which helps save storage space, now works with OneDrive Files On-Demand to clean out files you’ve downloaded from OneDrive cloud storage to your PC but that you don’t use any longer. You can choose how long you would like the cloud files to stay on your PC unused before you want them deleted, from never to 60 days.
The Microsoft Edge browser lets you set autoplay permissions for sound and video on websites on a site-by-site basis. It also lets you look up word definitions in its built-in eReader for books and PDFs, and mark up PDFs and books using a highlighter and by adding notes.
The new Your Phone app links Windows 10 devices to iOS and Android phones. It allows you to start web browsing on an iOS or Android device and then continue where you left off on your PC. It also lets you view photos on your Android phone from your Windows 10 PC.
Search Previews have been powered up slightly. You no longer need to click to display the preview panel; it opens automatically. It also now shows files found on your PC.
Smaller changes include a new dark theme for File Explorer; the addition of the SwiftKey swipe keyboard, which lets you enter text by swiping a finger across an onscreen keyboard; updates that are less intrusive; and faster sign-ins on shared PCs.

What IT needs to know: There are few significant changes that affect IT in the Windows 10 October 2018 Update, other than New Microsoft Edge Group Policies that let admins enable and disable full-screen mode, printing, the favorites bar, and browser history saves. IT can also allow or ban Edge extensions (not that there are many available) and configure the Home button and new tab page and startup options.

Windows 10 April 2018 Update (version 1803)

Release date: April 30, 2018

Version 1803, called the Windows 10 April 2018 Update, is the major update to Windows 10 that preceded the October 2018 Update. Here’s a quick summary of what’s new for users in it. (For more details, see our full review.)

The most important new feature is Timeline, which lets you review and resume activities and open files you’ve started on your PC, or any other Windows PCs you have. It also tracks what you’ve done on iOS and Android devices if you install Microsoft’s digital assistant Cortana on them and are logged in. It shows a list of activities day by day for up to 30 days. Each activity shows up as a large tile, with the file name and document title or URL and website name across it, and the name of the application or app that created it across the top. Click any activity to reopen it. (Note that at present, Timeline only tracks activities in certain Microsoft programs such as the Edge browser and Office applications.)
The new Diagnostic Data Viewer is supported, which Microsoft is designed to let you see the “diagnostic data collected from your Windows devices, how it is used, and to provide you with increased control over that data.” However, the information is presented in such a complex, technical way that even programmers will likely have a difficult time understanding it. The viewer isn’t built directly into the Windows 10 April 2018 Update. Instead, you have to download it from the Microsoft Store.
The My People feature now lets you pin up to 10 contacts on the Windows taskbar. Previously, you could only pin up to three.
Microsoft Edge gets several minor tweaks, including a revamped Hub, the ability to mute auto-playing audio in tabs, and a forms-filler for web-based forms.
The Notebook feature of Cortana gets a new, cleaner interface for its Notebook. It now has two tabs, Organizer and Manage Skills. The Organizer makes it easier to create lists and set reminders. The Manage Skills tab lets you add “skills” to Cortana, such as controlling your home and its appliances, connecting Cortana to music services such as Spotify, tracking your fitness and more.
You get more control over app permissions, such as whether they can access your camera, location and contacts.

What IT needs to know: IT staff should be aware of these features that are new in the Windows 10 April 2018 Update:

Windows 10 Professional now gets the Windows Defender Application Guard, which protects Microsoft Edge. There’s also a new feature in the application guard that lets users download files inside Edge instead of directly to the operating system, as a way to increase security.
There are new policies for Group Policy and Mobile Device Management (MDM) that can better control how Delivery Optimization is used for Windows Update and Windows Store app updates. You can also now monitor Delivery Optimization using Windows Analytics.
Windows AutoPilot also gets a tweak that lets IT make sure policies, settings and apps are provisioned on devices before users begin using them.
Windows gets the Linux curl and tar utilities for downloading files and extracting .tar archives built directly into Windows. Windows also now natively supports Unix sockets (AF_UNIX) with a new afunix.sys kernel driver. That will make it easier to port software to Windows from Linux as well as from other Unix-like operating systems.
There are a host of improvements to the Windows Subsystem for Linux, which lets you run a variety of Linux distributions on Windows 10. Linux applications can run in the background, some launch settings for Linux distributions can be customized, and Linux applications have been given access to serial devices. The new Unix sockets report is available for the Windows Subsystem for Linux as well as Windows itself.
The Windows 10 Pro for Workstations version of Windows 10 gets a new power scheme called Ultimate Performance it’s only for desktop PCs, not those that can be powered by batteries. In addition, Windows 10 Pro for Workstations no longer ships with games like Candy Crush or other similar consumer-focused apps. Instead, it features enterprise- and business-related apps.
Administrators have been given the power to configure an enterprise’s PCs to run custom scripts during feature updates, which will make configuration and deployment easier.

For more details, see the Microsoft blog post “Making IT simpler with a modern workplace.”

Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (version 1709)

Release date: October 17, 2017

Version 1709, called the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, is the major update to Windows 10 that preceded the April 2018 Update. Here’s a quick summary of what’s new for users in it. (For more details, see our full review.)

OneDrive gets a new feature called Files On-Demand that gives you access to all of your OneDrive files on every device, without having to download them first. You’ll be able to see all the files you have in OneDrive, even if they’re only in the cloud and not on your PC. Icons tell you which are local and which are in the cloud. Just open the file, and if it’s not on your PC, it gets downloaded.
The new My People feature lets you pin three contacts to the Windows taskbar and then communicate with them instantly without having to open a separate app such as Skype or Mail. You can also click to see a list of all communications between them and you at a glance.
You can now send web links from your iOS or Android device to your PC and have them open in Microsoft Edge.
Cortana gets several new features, including displaying results in a scrollable flyout panel, so you don’t have to launch a web browser.
Microsoft Edge gets some minor improvements, including better Favorites handling and the ability to mark up PDFs and e-books.
Security has been beefed up, including the addition of Windows Defender Exploit Guard, which includes intrusion rules and policies to protect against a variety of threats, notably zero-day exploits. A new anti-ransomware feature called Controlled Folder Access has also been added; it lets only approved apps have access to Windows system files and folders.
New privacy features include the ability to review the kinds of devices and services apps from the Microsoft Store want access to before you download them.
The update incorporates Microsoft’s new design system and guidelines, called Fluent Design. Overall, transitions are smoother, and there are subtle changes to the transparency effect.

What IT needs to know: IT staff should be aware of these features that are new in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update:

The notoriously insecure SMBv1 networking protocol, exploited in recent ransomware attacks including WannaCry and Petya, won’t be included on clean installs of the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, but SMBv1 components will remain if you do in-place upgrades on PCs that already have the component installed.
Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), a suite of tools introduced in Windows 10 that helps enterprise customers protect their users and networks against threats and respond to attacks, is being beefed up. Among other things, it will run on the Windows Server OS.
ATP is also part of Windows Defender Application Guard for Microsoft Edge, available only for Windows 10 Enterprise Edition. It protects against malware attacks by confining visits to unknown or untrusted websites to a virtual machine, so that attacks can’t spread to a PC or the network.
Windows AutoPilot, which improves self-service deployments of Windows 10 PCs, gets a variety of tweaks, including better mobile device management (MDM) services.
Windows Analytics’ new Device Health tool gathers information on how PCs perform in an enterprise, and based on that, identifies potential issues and outlines steps to resolve them.
Enterprises get more control over what kind of information Windows Analytics gathers for the IT staff. In order to improve users’ privacy, IT staff can limit the information collected by Windows Analytics to only diagnostic data.

For more details about new features for IT, see “What’s new in Windows 10, version 1709 IT Pro content,” “Announcing end-to-end security features in Windows 10” and “Delivering the Modern IT promise with Windows 10” from Microsoft.

Windows 10 Creators Update (version 1703)

Release date: April 5, 2017

Version 1703, dubbed the Creators Update, is the major update to Windows 10 that preceded the Fall Creators Update. Here’s a quick summary of what’s new for users in the Creators Update. (For more details, see our full review.)

It helps you better organize the Start menu by letting you put multiple tiles for apps into a single folder — for example, you can group all social media apps into one folder.
Users are given a bit more control over the update process: They can delay an update for three days and keep delaying it in three-day increments, or choose specific times for updates to install.
The Edge browser has gotten some improvements, including having Flash disabled by default for security reasons and supporting the ePub and PDF formats for reading books and other content.
Microsoft added some 3D and virtual reality features, including running HoloLens virtual reality and mixed reality apps for the first time, and introducing a Paint 3D app for creating 3D objects.
System settings that previously were in multiple locations have been consolidated into the Settings app.
There’s a new all-in-one security dashboard called Windows Defender Security Center that consolidates many security and computer health settings and information.
New gaming features include streaming gaming sessions over the internet; a Game Mode to improve gaming performance; and a Game bar to let you record your gameplay, take screenshots and perform games-related tasks.
The Cortana personal assistant gets a few modest additions, including scheduling monthly reminders and helping you set up devices.

What IT needs to know: IT staff should be aware of these features that are new in the Windows 10 Creators Update:

Security has been improved in a number of ways, including adding new features and insights into Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) to better investigate and respond to network threats. Among the new features are sensors in memory, better intelligence and improved remediation capabilities.
Several new configuration service providers (CSPs) available in the Creators Update let administrators manage Windows 10 devices through Mobile Device Management (MDM) or provisioning packages. The DynamicManagement CSP, for instance, can enable or disable certain device features depending on location, network presence or time.
New mobile application management capabilities can protect data on personal mobile devices without requiring each device to be part of the corporate MDM.
The Windows Configuration Designer (previously called Windows Imaging and Configuration Designer) includes new wizards to make it easier to create provisioning packages, including for desktop devices, Windows mobile devices, Surface Hub devices, HoloLens devices and kiosk devices.
Enterprise security administrators get a more comprehensive documentation library for Windows Defender Antivirus.
If an enterprise-wide update policy hasn’t been configured, users with Windows Pro, Windows Enterprise or Windows Education editions have much more control over how Windows updates. With the Creators Update, users can now automatically delay cumulative monthly updates for up to 30 days, and can delay feature updates by up to 365 days.

For more details about new features for IT, see the Microsoft blog posts “Windows 10 Creators Update advances security and best-in-class modern IT tools” and “What’s new in Windows 10, version 1703 IT pro content.”

Kategorie: Hacking & Security

Microsoft has revived a classic text editor from 1991

25 Červen, 2025 - 19:13

When MS-DOS 5.0 was released in 1991, one of the big innovations was the MS-DOS Editor, a classic text editor that quickly became popular with users. Now, Microsoft has developed a new version of MS-DOS Editor called Edit, according to Ars Technica.

Compared to the original, Edit offers a number of improvements, including support for Unicode. In addition, the 300-kilobyte limit has been removed, meaning users can work with gigabyte-sized files if they want.

Edit was written in the Rust programming language and is based on open-source code. And it doesn’t require Windows to run; the text editor works just as well on macOS or Linux.

If you want to try Edit, it can be downloaded from Github.

Kategorie: Hacking & Security

Google launches new genAI model for robots

25 Červen, 2025 - 19:07

Google subsidiary Deepmind has unveiled Gemini Robotics On-Device, a new version of the Gemini AI model meant to be used in robots and work without an internet connection. The new model reportedly supports natural language, making it easy to control the robot’s movements.

In terms of performance, Gemini Robotics On-Device performs almost as well as the connected Gemini Robotics, Techcrunch reports.

Developers interested in working with Gemini Robotics On-Device can download the Gemini Robotics SDK from Github.

Kategorie: Hacking & Security

Is Microsoft really axing Windows 10? Here’s what you need to know

25 Červen, 2025 - 16:59

“Stay on the right side of risk.” That’s what a new advertisement from Microsoft says, urging businesses and consumers to upgrade their Windows 10 PCs in the coming months. After all, Windows 10 will stop getting security updates in October. That’s now only four months away.

Microsoft has spent a lot of time talking about how wonderfully fast Windows 11 PCs are — especially its Copilot+ PCs, which are the focus of a major marketing campaign. However, as the clock ticks down to October, Microsoft is starting to shift from talking about the carrot (those performance improvements) to the stick (the security threats Windows 10 PCs will face).

But Microsoft has a weird history here — the company even patched major Windows XP threats years after officially ending support for that platform, repeatedly breaking its own update policy. That’s why it was no surprise when Microsoft announced a grand compromise a few weeks after I wrote the original version of this article: Consumers will be able to get that extra year of security updates for free (without the $30 fee).

To do so, they’ll just have to use Windows Backup to sync their settings to the cloud — or redeem 1,000 Microsoft Rewards points. That settings sync method is particularly easy, and it means all you have to do is sign into your personal Windows 10 PC with a Microsoft account and set up the syncing. The new options will be presented via an “enrollment wizard” in the Settings window. Businesses, however, will still have to pay.

So let’s look at what to expect, whether you’re managing a fleet of business PCs or you have a Windows 10 PC at home.

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What’s happening with Windows 10 today

First, a quick refresher: Microsoft will officially end support for Windows 10 on Oct. 14, 2025. After that date, Microsoft will stop issuing security updates for Windows 10 (at least, based on its current statements and guidance in that area).

Existing Windows 10 PCs will keep working, but they won’t get security updates. For a business, this is obviously a problem — just as it’s a big problem for home PC users.

Microsoft does have a solution for people who don’t want to upgrade immediately. It’s called Windows 10’s Extended Security Updates (ESU) program. You can pay a fee for up to three years of extra security updates. Individuals can only purchase one year’s worth of updates, however. Businesses will have to pay $61 per device for the first year, $122 device for the second year, and $244 device for the third year. Consumers can only get one year, and it’ll cost $30 — but Microsoft has now announced some easy ways to do that for free as a compromise, as mentioned a moment ago.

It’s worth noting that this applies only to typical editions of Windows 10. Microsoft also offers a Long-Term Service Channel (LTSC) of Windows to enterprises, which has a different software lifecycle. (In other words, the LTSC version of Windows 10 won’t stop getting security updates in October 2025.)

Windows 10 PCs are ramping up the messages about Windows 11 — and security warnings around sticking with Windows 10.

Chris Hoffman, Foundry

Will Microsoft change its mind?

While Microsoft has mostly plowed forward with its plans to ax Windows 10, the situation is a mess. We’ve never seen any version of Windows that was this popular right before it was exiting support. Microsoft doesn’t release information about Windows version usage, but third-party estimates put Windows 10 use at 53% of Windows PCs worldwide and 43% of Windows PCs in the US, specifically.

Microsoft initially said that it would immediately stop issuing security updates for Microsoft 365 subscription apps such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on Windows 10 after October 14, 2025. However, the company recently backpedaled: it now says Microsoft 365 apps will be supported with security updates through Oct. 10, 2028.

Additionally, Microsoft’s offer to sell an extra year of security updates to home PC users for $30 is new. It has never done this before. Previously, ESUs have only been for businesses. Microsoft can now shrug and say that people who want to keep using Windows 10 in a secure way have a way to pay for that security — at least for the first year. And they can even get it for free if they’re individual consumers!

I doubt we’ll see Microsoft cancel the big October deadline. In fact, Microsoft watered it down, offering a way to get on the ESU update path for free to consumers. I wouldn’t be shocked to see Microsoft offer a second year of ESUs as an option to home users if Windows 10 use remains high come October 2026, too.

This also helps Microsoft cover itself. Let’s say there’s a huge Windows 10 security problem and Microsoft executives are dragged in front of Congress to answer for it. They can say that they do offer security updates to consumers, but consumers have to sign up for it like any other service. That’s a better answer than, “We sell extended updates to businesses but not to consumers.”

The Windows XP lesson

If there is a huge security problem for Windows 10 PCs down the line, I would expect Microsoft to patch Windows 10, anyway. The company did this for Windows XP several times.

While Windows XP support ended in 2014, Microsoft released patches for Windows XP in 2017 (to patch WannaCry) and even in 2019 to prevent worms from exploiting a vulnerability. That was five years after Windows XP’s official end-of-life marker.

That doesn’t mean Windows XP machines were secure, exactly — but that Microsoft at least had an eye on blocking the worst threats that could take root on Windows XP systems and cause problems for the rest of the internet.

Don’t want to pay? You have options

Microsoft would prefer to nudge you into buying a new PC. That’s what that fee is all about: Microsoft wants people to see the $30 fee and decide it’s time to buy a new Windows 11 laptop after all. Or, at the very least, by signing in with a Microsoft account and syncing your settings, Microsoft wants you to start thinking about how easy a hardware upgrade would be. Microsoft’s marketing is performing a pincer move here: talking not just about the security risks of sticking with Windows 10 but the upgraded performance, battery life, and AI features of getting a new Windows 11 laptop. Microsoft wants businesses to see the steeply increasing fee and make plans to buy new hardware.

But you certainly don’t have to go down that road. If you have a Windows 10 PC you want to keep using, but with truly secure software at its core, you could keep it, ditch Windows and install a Linux distribution on it. You could also install Google’s ChromeOS Flex, a version of ChromeOS Google offers for existing PCs. Both are free.

There are also ways to upgrade some existing Windows 10 PCs to Windows 11, even if Microsoft says the upgrade isn’t “officially supported.” For a home PC, this is one way to keep getting security updates for an old Windows 10 PC — by bumping it up to Windows 11. Some PCs that are just below the hardware cutoff for Windows 11 will work great, while older PCs might not perform as well.

Additionally, you could instead consider 0Patch. That’s a company that creates security software designed to run in the background and use “micropatches” that block known security vulnerabilities from running. The service wouldn’t be free for Windows 10, but it is less expensive than most other options. And, for home users, it looks like it’ll be a way to keep getting a sort of security protection for Windows 10 after that first year.

I’ve spoken to the company, and they seemed eager to keep supporting Windows 10 for as long as it’s a good investment — they’re not eager to move on from Windows 10.

The Windows 10 PCs getting left behind

Let’s consider things from Microsoft’s perspective: Windows 10 was released on July 29, 2015, which means the operating system has had just over a decade of support. That same year, Google released the Nexus 6P with Android 6.0 Marshmallow. Google stopped supporting both the Nexus 6P and that version of Android back in 2018.

Windows 11 was released in October 2021, but most PCs released in 2019 to 2020 could upgrade to it — even many of those released in 2018 to 2019 might be able to do so, too.

The most realistic worst-case scenario here is that if you bought an older Windows 10 PC in 2019 and it can’t upgrade to Windows 11, you still got roughly six years of use from it. Also, if it’s that close to the cutoff, you likely can upgrade it to Windows 11, just through an “unofficial” upgrade method that Microsoft leaves open with a wink and a nudge.

Still, your Windows 10 PC’s long life is no consolation if you’re happy with your hardware and you feel like you’re having your arm twisted into upgrading when you’d rather not.

PCs are becoming so good that, assuming they boot and run well, it’s easy to treat them as an appliance. If you don’t feel like upgrading, why should you? After all, aren’t we supposed to be avoiding unnecessary e-waste? By avoiding the upgrade, you’re arguably helping Microsoft achieve its sustainability goals. Microsoft should thank you!

If your PC is so old that it can’t realistically be upgraded, though, Microsoft is right: Newer PCs are a lot faster, and even a budget-tier Windows 11 PC will deliver a much nicer experience. And between the “unofficial” way to upgrade to Windows 11, switching to desktop Linux, and Google’s ChromeOS Flex software, there are lots of paths forward for Windows 10 hardware that still has useful life left in it.

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Kategorie: Hacking & Security

Apple should Sherlock SAP’s open-source energy management app

25 Červen, 2025 - 14:58

SAP’s open-source energy management app, Power Monitor, shows how you could manage energy costs for your devices — and your Mac could help you do so.

Designed for business users managing large fleets, the app should also benefit consumers concerned about energy use. It’s a great example of a tool that does one useful thing well, which is track Mac energy use and calculate cost.

Who doesn’t worry about energy costs? They’ve risen steeply since 2020. That concerns people using Macs at home, but price is a major worry for larger enterprises managing hundreds of Macs in a challenging business environment. Managing energy also matters to larger enterprises struggling to adopt ISO 50001 energy management systems, and we know Apple understands energy use.

What is SAP’s Power Monitor?

Available via GitHub, Power Monitor is designed to help enterprise users get a handle on sustainability efforts. If you are someone who continues to cling to the faith that human impact on the environment is minimal, then Power Monitor does do something else useful, too – it calculates your energy costs.

What’s neat about the app is that it provides you with this information in a very Apple-like way. Open it up and at a glance you’ll see your current system power in Watts, along with average power, highest peak power, and energy costs that day. You can also see how much CO2 has been emitted by the energy use of your Mac. You can access this information in the app or via the Menu bar.

The application requires you to enter your energy costs and can let you activate flexible energy tariffs for those with suppliers that charge different rates at different times of day. You gain a good, in-depth overview of the costs and consequences of Mac use.

Screenshot

Jonny Evans

When it comes to managed fleets, IT can poll this data from across their devices to gain excellent oversights into energy use. If you’re running a business that uses dozens, hundreds, or thousands of Macs, you’ll already know that this information can tangibly help manage costs. It’s the kind of information any graduate of the Apple-supported Clean Energy Procurement Academy needs sometimes.

What alternatives exist?

I’m sure there are other apps that deliver similar insights, but they seem hard to find. Those I did find either track use on a per-app basis (like Activity Monitor), or are tied to specific energy suppliers, which SAP’s app is not. The Home app will track electricity use across compatible HomeKit devices, but doesn’t track the cost of running your Mac or, weirdly, any other Apple device on the network.

I find it strange that, at a time of rapidly accelerating energy costs, finding an off-the-shelf solution to help manage those costs appears challenging. That should change, which is why I think Apple should Sherlock SAP’s Power Monitor app and provide this simple but useful tool within macOS.

Why isn’t this a Mac feature already?

Why isn’t a feature like this already inside Macs?

Perhaps because people haven’t said they need it. Or maybe Apple just doesn’t want to remind people that using their Mac costs money? Potentially, it is because the most popular Macs work on battery power. There may be perfectly good reasons not to include a tool of this kind, but one more major reason Apple should do so is for bragging rights.

You see, we already know Macs deliver more performance per watt than other systems, thanks to the five-year-old move to Apple Silicon. What better way to show how that low energy promise translates into real economic benefit than by making it possible to track accurate performance/energy costs against the estimated costs per hour when using other platforms?

Would you use Power Monitor?

Enterprises attempting to tally their carbon emissions to achieve compliance with national climate targets will eventually demand access to data of that kind. Why not make this information an operating system feature? And why not make this available across all Apple’s products, rather than only Macs? Do you think Apple should integrate a tool like this to help you manage your fleets?

I do.

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Kategorie: Hacking & Security

Microsoft offers free Windows 10 security updates, but only for consumers

25 Červen, 2025 - 14:42

Microsoft’s latest Windows 10 Extended Security Updates announcement reveals a telling double standard: while home users get multiple free pathways to maintain security beyond the October 2025 deadline, enterprises face the same expensive pay-or-migrate ultimatum.

The software giant announced in a blog post that individual consumers can secure an additional year of Windows 10 security updates for free, either through Windows Backup, or by redeeming 1,000 Microsoft Rewards points. They also have the option to access the updates by paying a $30 fee.

Meanwhile, businesses must still pay $61 per device for first-year coverage, with costs doubling annually thereafter, and there are no pathways to free access.

“ESU coverage for personal devices runs from Oct. 15, 2025, through Oct. 13, 2026,” Microsoft said in its blog post. But businesses? They’re still looking at the same three-year, escalating fee structure with no free alternatives.

Industry experts see Microsoft’s approach as strategic pressure rather than customer accommodation.

“This fee is a nudge towards Windows 11 and confirms that the vendor has a firm intention to see enterprise customers moving to Windows 11,” said Dario Maisto, senior analyst at Forrester Research.

Enterprise reality: Same expensive options, different messaging

Microsoft first launched its Windows 10 Extended Security Updates program in April 2024 with enterprise-focused pricing: $61 per device for year one, $122 for year two, and $244 for year three. Tuesday’s announcement doesn’t change those enterprise rates.

Business options remain available through the Microsoft Volume Licensing Program, with Cloud Service Provider partners able to sell commercial ESUs starting September 1. Maisto notes this timing “should ease the impact of these measures on the vendor’s cloud services revenue strategy.”

For organizations with 1,000 Windows 10 devices, Microsoft’s ESU program represents a $61,000 first-year commitment. A three-year ESU commitment totals $427,000, enough to purchase significant new hardware.

However, Maisto observes that “many organizations may rather pay the ESU subscription than make major investments in accelerating Windows 11 hardware refresh cycles,” particularly given current economic uncertainties and geopolitical volatility.

Current StatCounter data shows that Windows 10’s market share stands at 53% of the global Windows market, with Windows 11 at 43%. In enterprise environments, where hardware refresh cycles are longer, Windows 10 penetration often runs higher.

The strategic calculation and planning time

Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst at Greyhound Research, warned that enterprises viewing ESU as a long-term solution are accumulating “strategic debt.” He noted that relying on ESU instead of refreshing devices may offer short-term budget relief but defers readiness for AI-era workloads.

However, Maisto pointed to a silver lining: “This additional time will give enterprises a breath to plan for Windows 11 adoption and do a proper risk assessment regarding security and compliance issues related to staying on Windows 10.”

Microsoft’s approach reflects calculated pressure: make staying on Windows 10 expensive enough to drive migration decisions, while offering consumers relief to avoid platform defection. The cloud exception for Windows 365 and Azure Virtual Desktop users proves Microsoft’s priorities — steering organizations toward higher-margin, recurring revenue streams.

Maisto noted that organizations are “trying to understand which scenario will materialize given the current geopolitical volatility,” with each organization taking “a different path depending on its risk appetite.”

Compliance gaps and enterprise risks

Extended Security Updates deliver only critical and important security patches. Even after paying $61 per device, IT departments won’t receive new features, non-security bug fixes, or technical support.

Gogia emphasized that ESU creates compliance risks beyond basic security. “Microsoft’s ESU program may keep vulnerabilities patched, but it doesn’t close the compliance gap,” he said. “Without support for evolving identity frameworks, telemetry, or zero-trust baselines, Windows 10 — even patched — is an aging platform.”

For regulated industries, the absence of advanced encryption support or newer multi-factor authentication integrations may result in failed audits. “Security updates alone do not equal a secure posture — especially in regulated sectors,” Gogia noted.

Maisto acknowledged this will “ease the pressure on organizations in these already turbulent times,” but warned each enterprise must conduct proper risk assessments when weighing ESU against immediate Windows 11 migration.

The cloud backup enterprise dilemma

Microsoft’s free consumer ESU option requires enabling cloud backup through Microsoft services — a condition that creates enterprise policy conflicts.

“Microsoft is not just offering patches — it’s offering them in exchange for cloud footprint expansion,” Gogia explained. The cloud backup requirement raises concerns for organizations managing complex data residency and encryption frameworks.

Many enterprise policies disallow external backups that bypass data loss prevention workflows. For regulated enterprises in healthcare and public infrastructure, defaulting to cloud sync may violate internal mandates.

Implementation complexity

Organizations evaluating ESU face complexity that consumer programs don’t address. Devices must run Windows 10 version 22H2, potentially requiring extensive patch management before ESU activation.

The enrollment process integrates with volume licensing systems rather than simplified consumer wizards. Enterprise IT teams must coordinate with procurement, legal, and finance departments for multi-year ESU agreements.

Most critically, Microsoft offers no technical support as part of ESU programs. Organizations paying premium prices still depend on community forums or expensive Microsoft consulting services for implementation issues.

Microsoft’s enhanced Windows 10 ESU program confirms that enterprises are expected to pay their way through the transition while consumers get multiple free options. The timing of Cloud Service Provider availability in September aligns with Microsoft’s cloud revenue strategy.

Both analysts agree the program serves Microsoft’s interests while providing enterprises limited relief. “It’s security with strings — and a subtle shift in monetization logic,” Gogia said.

For IT leaders, this represents both breathing room and continued pressure. While ESU provides time for proper Windows 11 planning and risk assessment, the escalating costs ensure that staying on Windows 10 becomes increasingly expensive each year, exactly as Microsoft intended.

Kategorie: Hacking & Security

10 ways to boost Windows security

25 Červen, 2025 - 12:00

With Microsoft set to stop security updates for Windows 10 in October — unless you pay extra — security is top of mind for many businesses and individual users right now. And whether you’re planning on sticking with Windows 10 or you’ve already upgraded to Windows 11, there’s almost certainly more you can do to increase your PC’s security.

Here’s a look at some of the actual software tools you can use to make your system more secure — not basic behavioral advice like “don’t run sketchy software” or broad, theoretical tips on avoiding threats online. That’s all fine advice, but we’ve all seen it before.

Instead, we’re going to dive deep into worthwhile tweaks and critical checks in the Windows software already on your PC. They’re simple steps that’ll make an immediate impact on your system’s security and the protection of your professional and/or personal data — and they’re right there just waiting to be used.

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Windows security boost #1: Block bad apps

Windows can automatically block “potentially unwanted apps,” but it doesn’t do so by default. The phrase “potentially unwanted apps” is a euphemism for programs that aren’t technically malware or anything illegal, but they may do things you don’t want — like spy on you or show ads. Also called “potentially unwanted programs” or “PUPs,” they’ve been dubbed “malware with a legal team” — an obvious exaggeration, but not exactly wrong.

To ensure Windows is blocking these, launch the “Windows Security” app from the Start menu, select “App & browser control,” click “Reputation-based protection settings,” and ensure “Potentially unwanted app blocking” is set to “On.”

Windows can block annoying apps — but the setting isn’t on by default.

Chris Hoffman, Foundry

Windows security boost #2: Check your encryption

Modern Windows PCs automatically set up “Device Encryption” when you sign into them with a Microsoft account, ensuring someone who steals your laptop can’t get access to your private files. But, again, the option might not always be activated by default out of the box. To check whether your PC storage is encrypted, open the Start menu, search for “BitLocker,” and select “Manage BitLocker.”

The BitLocker page in the Control Panel will show if your PC’s storage is encrypted.

Chris Hoffman, Foundry

If you don‘t see that your PC’s storage is securely encrypted with either Device Encryption or BitLocker, there are two possible explanations:

You’ve signed in with a local account and need to sign in with a Microsoft account to activate the Device Encryption feature on your PC.
You’re using an older PC that doesn’t support Device Encryption, and you need to pay for an upgrade to the Professional edition of Windows to activate the BitLocker feature.

For what it’s worth, Device Encryption is more of a “BitLocker light” experience without all the features, while BitLocker is the full-featured, more customizable disk encryption software. However, they’re built on the same underlying technology, and both will securely encrypt PC files.

Read my BitLocker encryption guide for more information.

Windows security boost #3: Consider your syncing setup

On both Windows 10 and 11, Microsoft wants OneDrive to automatically sync folders such as your Desktop, Documents, and Pictures folders. Their contents will be stored in your Microsoft account online and synced between your PCs.

That can be convenient, but depending on the data you work with, you might not want to sync it to your Microsoft account. It’s a matter of data security — especially within organizations, which often want to maintain close control over corporate data.

To control exactly what OneDrive is doing on your PC and what it’s syncing, consult my guide to taming OneDrive on Windows.

Windows security boost #4: Turn off less secure sign-ins

Windows normally lets you sign in by typing your password. If you use a Microsoft account, that same password will be your Microsoft account’s online password. If you have a PC with Windows Hello biometric sign-in support — a fingerprint reader, facial recognition, or both — you can turn off password sign-ins and opt to sign in only with those more secure biometric methods.

To do this, head to Settings > Accounts > Sign-in options. Under Additional settings, activate, “For improved security, only allow Windows Hello sign-in for Microsoft accounts on this device.”

Once that’s done, if someone else does gain access to your PC, they won’t be able to sign into it — even if they’ve captured your Microsoft account password. For optimal security, beyond that, be sure to use a long PIN and avoid typing it in public. (Your PC will enforce a limit on how often people can guess the PIN, so it doesn’t have to be uncrackable — just hard to guess.)

Windows security boost #5: Activate ransomware protection

Ransomware literally holds your files for ransom. The malware encrypts your files and prevents you from accessing them until you pay up — often with Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency.

To prevent ransomware from running roughshod over your files, Windows has a “Controlled folder access” feature that will keep questionable-looking apps from tampering with your Documents, Pictures, Music, and Video folders. It’s designed to let friendly apps through, but it might block apps you use and require you to let them through manually. However, it will still provide extra protection — if you’re willing to accept a little bit of extra configuration and the occasional extra bit of hassle.

Here’s what you need to know about Controlled folder access — and how to set it up.

Windows security boost #6: Double-check Office updates

Do you use Microsoft Office? If so, you should ensure it’s getting security updates. I’ve noticed many people end up with outdated versions of Office that aren’t still getting security updates — sometimes even because they (or someone) turned off the Office updates without realizing the implications. It’s important to protect Office from threats that could arrive via malicious downloaded documents, so that’s not an advisable move.

To confirm that your Office setup is in good shape, open an Office app (like Word), click “File,” and click “Account” at the bottom left corner of the window. Look at the Update Options button at the right side of the window and ensure it says “Updates are automatically downloaded and installed” — if not, you can click “Update options” to activate automatic updates.

If you’re using an outdated version of Office, it won’t warn you — it’ll just stop downloading security updates.

Chris Hoffman, Foundry

You should also look at the name of your Office product at the top of the window in this same area. If it says you’re using “Microsoft 365,” then you’re using Microsoft’s subscription-based version of Office that will always get updates.

If it says a specific version (like Office 2021), be sure to consult the end of support table on Microsoft’s website for more information. (As of now, Office 2016 and Office 2019 are set to be phased out in October 2025, while Office 2021 has until October 2026. Office 2024 has until October 2029.)

Windows security boost #7: Check whether your apps are current

Windows apps don’t necessarily always update themselves with security updates. It’s one of the big security challenges on Windows, and it forces many organizations to roll their own software update strategies to monitor and deliver security patches. While Microsoft is finally moving toward fixing this, it’s still a problem.

First, ensure apps managed by the Store app are actively receiving updates. Launch the Store from the Start menu, click your profile picture, and click “Settings.” Ensure the “App updates” option is set to “On.” (Even if you don’t use the Store, many apps included with Windows can still be updated using it.)

Second, check to see whether you have vulnerable, out-of-date apps installed. You can use tools like the winget command built into Windows, the slick UniGetUI tool for it, or Patch My PC’s free Home Updater tool.

Windows security boost #8: Activate isolation

Windows has a variety of low-level system hardening features that will make the Windows system kernel — the core part of Windows — harder to exploit. They should work well with modern PCs, and many of them may be activated automatically, depending on how old your computer is. In general, if you aren’t using extremely old hardware drivers or other low-level software, they should just work — and boost your PC’s security.

To activate them or confirm that they’re active, open the Windows Security app from your Start menu. Click “Device security” and then “Core isolation details.” (This is available on both Windows 10 and 11, but you might not see it, or you might see different features — it depends on the specifics of your PC and what its hardware supports.)

The options you see on the Core isolation settings screen will depend on your PC’s hardware.

Chris Hoffman, Foundry

When you activate any one of these security features, Windows will check to see whether it will work well on your system. If it won’t — for example, if you have an old hardware driver that doesn’t work properly with one of these features — Windows will generally spot the problem and turn the feature off automatically.

Windows security boost #9: Start sandboxing

While it’s always a good idea to avoid sketchy software, let’s say you do want to run a program without giving it too much access to your system. In any such scenario, I recommend using the Windows Sandbox — a feature that requires the Professional edition of Windows 10 or 11.

The Windows Sandbox creates a temporary Windows environment within Windows, letting you run software without giving it to access the rest of your files and hardware. To activate it — assuming you have the right edition of Windows — open the “Turn Windows features on or off” tool from the Start menu and install the “Windows Sandbox” feature.

Since this does require the Professional edition of Windows, many people and organizations won’t have access to it. You can always install Windows in a virtual machine like VirtualBox, too, and run software in there as an alternative.

Windows security boost #10: Consider tighter protection settings

Many years ago, I recommended installing exploit-protection software like Microsoft’s EMET (Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit) or Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit. These days, it generally isn’t necessary; Windows has integrated its own native anti-exploit protection to provide your programs with extra protection from attacks.

To see these settings, you can open the Windows Security app from the Start menu, click “App & browser control,” and click “Exploit protection settings.”

Almost everything there should be turned on by default. If you want some extra security, you could activate “Force randomization for images (Mandatory ASLR).” However, this could cause problems with some old programs, so you’ll probably want to skip it.

I recommend leaving it alone — and feeling secure that anti-exploit protection is now part of Windows and the type of thing you don’t have to hunt down separately, just like antivirus software.

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Kategorie: Hacking & Security

This is (probably) the unreleased Google Pixel Tablet Pen

25 Červen, 2025 - 11:45

Google’s Android tablet saga is a seemingly endless series of almosts, what ifs, and coulda-beens — and now, we’ve got one more chapter to add into that book.

First, a quick and very pertinent three-part power-round of context catch-up. Part one:

Way back in 2010, Google bought a company called BumpTop and seemed set to bring its wild three-dimensional interface concepts into the Android tablet arena — as I pieced together and recounted some years back.
But then, by 2011, with new leadership in place, the BumpTop concepts were mostly set aside.
And instead, in 2011, Google came out with an ambitious and almost completely different interface for large-screen Android tablet experiences with the Android 3.0 Honeycomb release. The software reimagined every bit of how we interact with our devices in an effort to take full advantage of the newfound screen space and create a more efficiency-optimized, productivity-minded environment.
But then — well, y’know: Google Googled. It failed to get developers on board with its vision, lost focus, pivoted, then flailed for a while, ultimately eliminating most of the Honeycomb concepts and making tablets look and work exactly like Android phones.

That’s the first chapter, in a sense. Then came the middle part of the story — part two, for our purposes:

In 2015, Google came out with an awkwardly positioned Android tablet called the Pixel C. It brought back a kinda-sorta tablet-optimized interface, but something always seemed slightly strange about the product — and certain slivers of sleuthing suggested it might’ve originally been intended to be a ChromeOS, not Android, device.
By 2017, the lack of any focus or momentum on Android tablets led me to declare that the Chromebook was, for all intents and purposes, the new Android tablet. It was clear by then that Google didn’t see much future in the tablet form or reason to invest in making it a good experience at the platform level.
And sure enough, by 2020, the company confirmed to me that it was done making its own tablets and would focus instead on laptop-style devices for its own self-made products.

You might think the fairy tale ends there — but, no siree, Bob, we’ve got another era yet. Here’s part three:

In 2022, I discovered and reported that one of Android’s lesser-known original co-founders had rejoined the company with the title of of “CTO, Android tablets.”
At the same time, word broke that Google was giving up on laptops, in a dizzying reversal from its two-years-earlier about-face.
And sure enough, in 2023, the flip-flop finished and Google revealed it was back in the tablet game with the Pixel Tablet and its bold but never fully realized ideas about reinventing the Android tablet as a whole new type of line-blurring device.
- Initially, the Pixel Tablet was meant to be a smart-home control panel that you also used as a lean-back-style, more passive-use tablet. The problem is that while the device was — and still is! — an excellent tablet, the smart-home side of the experience felt weirdly half-baked and not especially exceptional.
Soon, the Pixel Tablet narrative shifted, and it looked like Google was gearing up to reinvent the device as more of a computer-replacing desktop system in its next iteration — with a wild new Android desktop mode at its core and, according to reports, native keyboard and stylus accessories to flesh out that picture.
But then the second-gen Pixel Tablet was reportedly cancelled before it ever even saw the light of day.

And that — insert massively exaggerated deep breath here… — brings us to today.

[Psst: Got a Pixel? Any Pixel? Check out my free Pixel Academy e-course to discover all sorts of advanced intelligence lurking within your phone and/or tablet!]

Your guess is as good as mine as to if Google will ever put out its own tablet again and how many more about-faces we might be facing, but for now, what we have is that aforementioned pile of almosts, what ifs, and coulda-beens. And the latest of ’em is the productivity-centric future the Pixel Tablet almost brought us but never quite had the opportunity to deliver.

And that’s where things get freshly interesting:

The key software piece of that puzzle — the Android desktop mode — is, in fact, still being actively developed. It’s now a part of the latest Android 16 quarterly update beta, with the main purpose of letting you plug an Android phone into a monitor and then use it like a computer later this year.
As part of that development, the feature is now available on the original Pixel Tablet, with that beta Android version installed and the appropriate developer-level option enabled.
And, thanks to the wild luck and generous sharing of a member of my Intelligence Insider uber-geek community, I got my grubby hands on what very much appears to be the never-released Google Pixel Tablet Pen — a.k.a. the stylus we never saw as a part of the Pixel Tablet’s unrealized future.

So without further ado, here it is:

srcset="https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/01-google-pixel-tablet-pen-stylus.jpg?quality=50&strip=all 1600w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/01-google-pixel-tablet-pen-stylus.jpg?resize=300%2C183&quality=50&strip=all 300w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/01-google-pixel-tablet-pen-stylus.jpg?resize=768%2C468&quality=50&strip=all 768w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/01-google-pixel-tablet-pen-stylus.jpg?resize=1024%2C623&quality=50&strip=all 1024w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/01-google-pixel-tablet-pen-stylus.jpg?resize=1536%2C935&quality=50&strip=all 1536w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/01-google-pixel-tablet-pen-stylus.jpg?resize=1145%2C697&quality=50&strip=all 1145w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/01-google-pixel-tablet-pen-stylus.jpg?resize=276%2C168&quality=50&strip=all 276w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/01-google-pixel-tablet-pen-stylus.jpg?resize=138%2C84&quality=50&strip=all 138w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/01-google-pixel-tablet-pen-stylus.jpg?resize=789%2C480&quality=50&strip=all 789w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/01-google-pixel-tablet-pen-stylus.jpg?resize=591%2C360&quality=50&strip=all 591w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/01-google-pixel-tablet-pen-stylus.jpg?resize=411%2C250&quality=50&strip=all 411w" width="1024" height="623" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px">What by all counts is the unreleased Google Pixel Tablet Pen, in the author’s suspiciously sweaty paw.

JR Raphael, Foundry

The Pen has a clear “Designed by Google” logo on its flat edge, along with the address of Google’s Mountain View campus. It also sports the code “GM0KF,” which — drumroll, please… — is the exact same code noted in a leak about the stylus’s existence last December.

A code on the stylus’s side says “GM0KF,” which matches the code on earlier materials about the product.

JR Raphael, Foundry

The Pen’s tip has a shiny silver metal button with a Google “G” logo printed atop it.

A familiar “G” logo adorns the stylus’s top.

JR Raphael, Foundry

And, yes, it is a dead ringer for the product pictured in that leak. We’re looking at the same exact thing.

The stylus looks exactly like what’s pictured in previously leaked Pixel Tablet Pen materials.

JR Raphael, Foundry

(I’ve reached out to Google several times over the past several days to see if it could provide any context or comment at all about the product, its existence, and if or when it might ever actually be released. As of this writing, the company has yet to offer any information.)

I charged the stylus via the built-in USB-C port, and it immediately started working on my Pixel Tablet. When I hold the Pen’s tip just above the Pixel Tablet’s screen, selectable elements beneath it respond and pop a bit to indicate they’re pressable. If it’s a text field — like the search box on the home screen — a cursor icon appears, and touching the Pen to the box pulls up a pop-up about how to use the stylus to write and have words automatically converted into text as well as how to perform a variety of editing operations entirely with the stylus.

A demo window explains how the Pixel Tablet Pen works in terms of writing and text editing.

JR Raphael, Foundry

Once that demo window is closed, I can just write anywhere on the screen, anytime. Once I bring the Pen close to the Pixel Tablet’s display, that same cursor icon appears, and the entire screen essentially turns into an open surface for input.

You can write anywhere on the Pixel Tablet’s screen and have your words turned into text.

JR Raphael, Foundry

The writing-to-text conversion works quite well, even with my drunken-toddler-level chicken-scratch handwriting. The Pen performs great on surfaces meant for freestyle writing, too, like with the drawing feature in Google Keep. Its input is smooth and consistent, and it’s incredibly easy to use.

The Android Google Keep app is especially well-suited to input with the Pixel Tablet Pen.

JR Raphael, Foundry

Those unofficial reports from a while ago showed an animation indicating that pressing the Pen’s button would pull up a “quick note-taking app” of some sort sort, but that doesn’t seem to work for me. The button doesn’t do anything at all, as far as I can tell — which probably isn’t surprising, since any such function would presumably require a missing software update in order to work.

Beyond that, there isn’t a heck of a lot remarkable about the hardware itself. The Pen has a soft-touch finish and feels light and comfy to hold. Oh, and it even sticks magnetically to a specific spot on the back side of the tablet itself as well as the official Google Pixel Tablet case — which certainly seems like a deliberate touch.

The stylus sticks to the back of the Pixel Tablet as well as its case in a deliberate-seeming position.

JR Raphael, Foundry

Android’s still under-development desktop mode works nicely with the Pen to create a more computer-like experience, meanwhile — especially if you also hook up a keyboard accessory of some sort. The software isn’t quite there yet, though, and is certainly nowhere near the level of true desktop-caliber productivity you get with a Chromebook, in large part because of the ways the Chrome Android app differs from the native desktop version.

But Google seems determined to close that gap, so we’ll see how things progress over time. That mission, however, appears to be more about bringing Android into the desktop domain than bringing the desktop domain into Android — for the moment, at least, though as we’ve seen so many times before, you never know how Google might change its mind in the future.

For now, this is mostly just a glimpse at another Android tablet almost — as far as the Pixel Tablet and the Pen are concerned. It’s an eye-opening look at a future we’ll probably never experience, in this specific scenario. And it’s the latest in a long, ever-expanding line of Android tablet coulda-beens.

Don’t let yourself miss an ounce of Pixel magic. Start my free Pixel Academy e-course and discover tons of hidden features and time-saving tricks for whatever Googley gadget you’re carrying!

Kategorie: Hacking & Security

What are Gemini, Claude, and Meta AI doing with enterprise data?

25 Červen, 2025 - 01:15

Enterprise users of leading large language models are at risk of making private information public, according to a new study on the data collection and sharing practices of organizations such as Meta, Google, and Microsoft that reveals they are collecting sensitive data and sharing it with unknown third parties.

In fact, businesses may face even greater risks than the multitude of individuals who use the various LLMs, according to the findings from Incogni, a personal data removal services and data privacy company.

“Employees frequently use generative AI tools to help draft internal reports or communications, not realizing that this can result in proprietary data becoming part of the model’s training dataset,” the company said. “This lack of safeguards not only exposes individuals to unwanted data sharing, but could also lead to sensitive business data being reused in future interactions with other users, creating privacy, compliance, and competitive risks.”

Ron Zayas, the CEO of Incogni’s business and government division Ironwall, said, “the analogy would be that we spend a lot of time as businesses making sure that our emails are secure, making sure that our machines lock themselves down after a certain period of time, of following SOC 2 protocols, all these things to protect information.” But now, he said, the concern is that “we’ve opened the door, and we have employees feeding information to engines that will process that and use it [perhaps in responses to competitors or foreign governments].”

To evaluate the LLMs, Incogni developed a set of 11 criteria that allowed it to assess the privacy risk in each, and compiled the results to determine each program’s privacy ranking in the areas of training, transparency, and data collection and sharing. From these, it also derived an overall rating.

Key findings in Incogni’s study revealed that:

Le Chat by Mistral AI is the “least privacy invasive platform, with ChatGPT and Grok following closely behind. These platforms performed the best when it comes to how transparent they are on how they use and collect data, and how easy it is to opt out of having personal data used to train underlying models.”
LLM platforms developed by the biggest tech companies turned out to be the most privacy-invasive, the report said, with Meta AI (Meta) being the worst, followed by Gemini (Google) and Copilot (Microsoft).
Gemini, DeepSeek, Pi AI, and Meta AI don’t seem to allow users to opt out of having prompts used to train the models.
ChatGPT turned out to be the most transparent about whether prompts will be used for model training, and it had a clear privacy policy.
Grok (xAI) may share photos provided by users with third parties.
Meta.ai “shares names, email addresses and phone numbers with external entities, including research partners and corporate group members.”

What not to tell AI

Justin St-Maurice, technical counselor at Info-Tech Research Group, said that from a corporate perspective, “training your staff on what not to put into tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Meta’s AI is critical.”

He added, “just as people are taught not to post private or sensitive information on social media, they need similar awareness when using generative AI tools. These platforms should be treated as public, not private. Putting personally identifiable information (PII) or proprietary company data into these systems is no different than publishing it on a blog. If you wouldn’t post it on LinkedIn or Twitter, don’t type it into ChatGPT. The good news? You can do a lot with these tools without needing to expose sensitive data.”

According to St-Maurice, “if you’re worried about Meta or Google sharing your data, you should reconsider your overall platform choices; this isn’t really about how LLMs process your data, but how these large corporations handle your data more generally.”

Privacy concerns are important, he said, “but it doesn’t mean organizations should avoid large language models altogether. If you’re hosting models yourself, on-prem or through secure cloud services like Amazon Bedrock, you can ensure that no data is retained by the model.”

St-Maurice pointed out that, in these scenarios, “the LLM functions strictly as a processor, like your laptop’s CPU. It doesn’t ‘remember’ anything you don’t store and pass back into it yourself. Build your systems so that the LLM does the thinking, while you retain control over memory, data storage, and user history. You don’t need OpenAI or Google to unlock the value of LLMs; host your own internal models, and cut out the risk of third-party data exposure entirely.”

What people don’t understand, added Ironwall’s Zayas, “is that all this information is not only being sucked in, it’s being repurposed, it’s being reused. It’s being publicized out there, and it’s going to be used against you.”

Kategorie: Hacking & Security

Mosyle’s AccessMule makes employee access a little easier for SMBs

24 Červen, 2025 - 17:33

Apple device management vendor Mosyle has introduced AccessMule, an easy-to-use workflow platform designed to address a specific set of small business needs related to granting, managing, auditing, sharing, storing, and removing employee access from company systems.

These protections are particularly important when on-boarding and off-boarding employees.

To understand why this matters, it’s important to consider that the main source of cybersecurity breaches among all businesses is not hackers per se, but intentional or unintentional actions performed by employees. That human factor is behind 74% of all security breaches, according to 2023 research from Verizon.

Mosyle has its own research to explain the problem.

Employee access is a time bomb

According to that data:

Around 87% of small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) say they cannot immediately verify which employees have access to company permissions.
Roughly the same percent of SMBs also fail to promptly revoke employee access when they leave.
Nearly 90% of companies have found former employees still have access to company applications and files, even after they leave the company.

None of these risks are good, of course — particularly in the context of an unravelling consensus around cybersecurity. So, it makes sense for companies to put sufficient protections in place today rather than face attacks in the future.

Mosyle encountered challenges managing the on/off-boarding process at first. “The decision to build AccessMule was born out of necessity at Mosyle” said the company’s CEO, Alcyr Araujo. “Later, we realized it wasn’t just a gap for our organization, but a fundamental problem that needed to be solved for all SMBs. We’re launching AccessMule today as an independent subsidiary that will empower organizations with a high-quality, secure and efficient access and password management platform at an affordable price.”

What does AccessMule provide?

Mosyle’s wholly-owned service provider will provide a range of tools designed to defend against the consequences of lax employee security. The main focus is to automate those elements of access control that SMBs often fail to manage. That means tools to automate onboarding and offboarding processes, along with controls to assign access based on roles and overall oversight reporting so it is possible to check who has corporate access at any given time.

Additional features include bult-in password management, safe password sharing, encryption sharing, and support for shared multi-factor authentication (MFA). Role-based access control (RBAC) features grant permissions in bulk, making it easy to assign permissions for new employees based on their role with a single action. All of these tools and services are available via an easy-to-use portal, the company said. The idea is that IT can maintain oversight on device and employee security, helping them better protect their company.

The ever booming Apple enterprise

Mosyle’s is just one of a range of announcements to emerge from across Apple’s enterprise value chain since WWDC. Just last week, Jamf published its own in-depth Apple-focused security report, while open-source device management vendor Fleet recently announced $27 million in new series B funding to help accelerate development of its own open platform for both cloud- and self-hosted device management for organizations of all kinds. Another vendor, Addigy, recently introduced its own new security partnership with CyberFOX.

It is usual for Apple’s enterprise partners to begin making service announcements subsequent to WWDC. This is usually inspired by Apple’s moves to enhance enterprise support in its products at the event. It is possible that all reputable Apple device management partners have now begun working with the new Apple betas and enterprise features it is building for introduction this fall.

Apple at WWDC introduced a host of new enterprise-focused improvements, including better support for Apple Accounts in the enterprise, improvements in device management, and a significant enhancement in the quality and quantity of device information IT can access from across their fleets. The latter means tech will even be able to audit MAC address, Activation Lock statues, storage, and cellular information, as well as AppleCare coverage. Platform SSO, App management, and device sharing tools were also improved at WWDC.

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Kategorie: Hacking & Security

US House reportedly bans WhatsApp from staffers’ devices over security concerns

24 Červen, 2025 - 16:20

A US House of Representatives official has reportedly banned WhatsApp from staffers’ government-issued devices, citing cybersecurity concerns about the messaging platform’s data handling practices. The decision adds Meta’s flagship messaging service to a growing list of applications deemed too risky for congressional use.

This ban signals heightened scrutiny of consumer messaging platforms in government environments and reinforces long-standing enterprise security concerns about using consumer-grade communication tools for sensitive business operations.

House cybersecurity office raises multiple red flags

The House Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) informed congressional staffers Monday that WhatsApp is banned on their government devices, according to a report by Axios. It cited an internal email saying “the Office of Cybersecurity has deemed WhatsApp a high risk to users due to the lack of transparency in how it protects user data, absence of stored data encryption, and potential security risks involved with its use.”

House staffers are prohibited from downloading or keeping “any mobile, desktop, or web browser versions” of WhatsApp on House-managed devices, the report said. Those who already have the app installed will be contacted to remove it.

According to the report, the CAO recommended several messaging alternatives, including Signal, Microsoft Teams, Amazon’s Wickr, and Apple’s iMessage and FaceTime. This selection reveals the House’s preference for platforms with stronger enterprise-grade security features or those developed by trusted US technology partners.

The CAO’s office did not respond to Computerworld’s request for comment.

Meta disputed the CAO’s decision. “We disagree with the House Chief Administrative Officer’s characterization in the strongest possible terms,” said a Meta spokesperson. “We know members and their staffs regularly use WhatsApp and we look forward to ensuring members of the House can join their Senate counterparts in doing so officially. Messages on WhatsApp are end-to-end encrypted by default, meaning only the recipients and not even WhatsApp can see them. This is a higher level of security than most of the apps on the CAO’s approved list that do not offer that protection.”

Enterprise-grade requirements take center stage

The House’s decision demonstrates a fundamental shift in how organizations approach messaging platform selection, particularly for sensitive communications.

Counterpoint Research partner Neil Shah said, “Applications meant for enterprise or critical public sector personas need to be enterprise grade, certified and whitelisted by the CIO or IT departments to mitigate any risk concerns.”

The ban represents “a big blow to Meta setting precedent on security concerns or transparency of the data traversing through its apps,” he said.

While WhatsApp remains a highly popular personal application, Shah noted, it “needs to have more transparency on how the data will be handled not just in transit but on servers as there is a deeper integration with Instagram, Facebook and other Meta properties building the user’s social graph to augment Meta’s ad business.”

This WhatsApp ban continues a broader trend of the House restricting technology applications based on security concerns.

“With all the geopolitical tensions, the US house doesn’t want to leave any gaping holes in security as data and information is the new arsenal for countries to get upper hand,” Shah said.

In December 2022, the House banned TikTok from staffers’ devices, citing the app as “high risk due to a number of security issues.” More recently, the House has restricted Microsoft Copilot AI and limited ChatGPT usage to the paid ChatGPT Plus version only, citing concerns about data leaks to unauthorized cloud services.

Enterprise security implications

The House’s decision reflects growing concerns among enterprise IT leaders about consumer messaging platforms documented by security experts for years.

Consumer messaging apps such as WhatsApp often lack administrative controls organizations need for compliance and data retention, failing to provide centralized management capabilities or detailed audit trails required in regulated industries. Even more concerning is the metadata exposure issue: Although WhatsApp encrypts message content, communication patterns and usage statistics may still be collected, potentially revealing sensitive business intelligence.

Additionally, WhatsApp backups stored in cloud services are not encrypted by default, leaving chat histories potentially exposed unless users manually enable encrypted backups, a step many users overlook.

Enterprise messaging strategy

For enterprise IT leaders, the House’s WhatsApp decision offers several strategic considerations. Organizations should assess messaging platforms based on enterprise security requirements rather than consumer popularity, evaluating key factors including end-to-end encryption, administrative controls, compliance features, and data residency options.

Clear policies distinguishing between approved personal and professional communication tools can help prevent security gaps while maintaining productivity. The House’s concerns about WhatsApp’s data handling transparency highlight the critical importance of thorough vendor assessments and clear data processing agreements.

Enterprise-grade platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Slack, or specialized secure messaging solutions may better serve organizational security and compliance needs, offering features like data loss prevention, legal hold capabilities, and integration with existing security infrastructure that consumer apps simply cannot match.

The House’s action on WhatsApp may influence other government agencies and enterprises to reevaluate their messaging platform policies. As organizations increasingly rely on digital communication tools, the balance between usability and security will continue to evolve.

Kategorie: Hacking & Security

DeepSeek accused of powering China’s military and mining US user data

24 Červen, 2025 - 12:54

DeepSeek has willingly provided and will likely continue to provide support to China’s military and intelligence operations, according to a senior US State Department official, raising serious questions about data security for the millions of Americans using the popular AI service.

The Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek is reportedly actively supporting China’s military and intelligence apparatus while employing sophisticated workarounds to access restricted US semiconductor technology, according to Reuters.

“We understand that DeepSeek has willingly provided and will likely continue to provide support to China’s military and intelligence operations,” the report said, quoting a senior State Department official. “This effort goes above and beyond open-source access to DeepSeek’s AI models.”

“DeepSeek sought to use shell companies in Southeast Asia to evade export controls, and DeepSeek is seeking to access data centers in Southeast Asia to remotely access US chips,” the report added, quoting the official. The allegations come as the Hangzhou-based company’s AI models have gained widespread adoption across US cloud platforms and among US users.

Military connections run deep

The company is referenced more than 150 times in procurement records for China’s People’s Liberation Army and other entities affiliated with the Chinese defense industrial base, according to the US official, who added that DeepSeek had provided technology services to PLA research institutions.

This adds context to recent reports of DeepSeek’s military applications. The PLA has >utilized DeepSeek’s latest AI models for non-combat tasks, including hospital settings and personnel management. Meanwhile, a research team at a university in northwest China employed the AI to generate 10,000 military scenarios in 48 seconds — a task that traditionally requires 48 hours for human commanders.

Chinese defense contractors have also integrated DeepSeek into autonomous military vehicles, with Chongqing Landship recently deploying it in a self-driving military vehicle at an international defense exhibition.

An Nvidia Spokesperson said DeepSeek acquired its products lawfully. “With the current export controls, we are effectively out of the China datacenter market, which is now served only by competitors such as Huawei. Our review indicates that DeepSeek used lawfully acquired H800 products, not H100,” the spokesperson said.

“DeepSeek’s models are open-sourced, allowing developers to modify them as they see fit. Each developer decides how to handle user information subject to applicable laws. We do not support parties that have violated US export controls or are on the US entity lists. We rely on the US government to update the controls and lists as it deems appropriate. Forcing developers to use foreign AI stacks for non-military applications only hurts America in the AI race. The US wins whenever a developer promotes the US AI stack. China has one of the largest populations of developers in the world, creating open-source foundation models and non-military applications used globally. While security is paramount, every one of those applications should run best on the US AI stack,” the spokesperson said.

Export control failures exposed

The allegations highlight what experts describe as fundamental flaws in current US export control policies. “The DeepSeek episode has spotlighted a structural weakness in the US export control regime: the increasing obsolescence of hardware-focused policies in a cloud-native, AI-driven world,” said Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst and CEO at Greyhound Research.

DeepSeek allegedly has access to “large volumes” of Nvidia’s high-end H100 chips, Reuters quoted the US official as saying, despite these processors being under strict US export restrictions since 2022.

Gogia argues that current hardware-focused controls fail to account for “distributed, virtualized environments” where “entities can lease advanced GPUs via third-party cloud access or operate under shell identities across permissive jurisdictions.” He advocates for export controls to evolve toward “a behavioral and intent-based model that evaluates not just what is being used, but how and by whom.”

Data security and surveillance concerns

Among the allegations, the official cited in the report said DeepSeek is sharing user information and statistics with Beijing’s surveillance apparatus. According to Stanford Cyber Policy Center, DeepSeek gathers comprehensive information, including personal details, all text and audio inputs, uploaded files, complete chat histories, and keystroke tracking patterns.

US lawmakers have previously noted that DeepSeek transmits American users’ data to China through “backend infrastructure” connected to China Mobile, a Chinese state-owned telecommunications giant.

Cloud platform paradox creates enterprise risk

Despite the allegations, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Huawei, and Alibaba Cloud continue offering customers access to DeepSeek models running on their own cloud infrastructure, from which they say information is not sent to DeepSeek or China. But use of the models may pose other risks unrelated to data transfer.

This corporate embrace contrasts sharply with government responses. The US Congress, Navy, Pentagon, NASA, and Texas have banned DeepSeek usage, while Italy blocked DeepSeek in a country-wide prohibition.

“The widespread availability of large language models via public cloud marketplaces, often with ambiguous provenance, unclear jurisdictional obligations, and hidden lineage, creates significant risk exposure for US enterprises,” Gogia warned. He noted that organizations are “effectively ingesting black-box models whose training data, hosting infrastructure, and developer affiliations may be misaligned with their compliance obligations.”

For enterprise customers, the revelations demand immediate policy changes. Gogia recommends organizations “evolve from vendor trust to systemic verification” through AI chain-of-custody audits and strict legal clauses governing data retention and jurisdictional obligations.

“AI integration pipelines must be redesigned with whitelisting at their core, enabling only those vendors that have demonstrably met audit requirements for security, governance, and geopolitical neutrality,” he said. “As AI becomes a strategic backbone rather than a functional add-on, the cost of operational opacity now carries enterprise-wide ramifications.”

Strategic implications and policy gaps

The allegations come amid intensifying US-China AI competition. DeepSeek represents the first time a Chinese AI lab has demonstrated breakthroughs at the absolute frontier of foundational AI research, marking a significant milestone in China’s capabilities.

When DeepSeek’s R1 model launched in January, it briefly caused Nvidia to lose more than $600 billion in market valuation as investors questioned assumptions about AI development costs and competitive advantages.

Some experts question DeepSeek’s claimed breakthroughs, arguing the true training costs were likely much higher than the reported $5.58 million, especially if the company had access to more advanced hardware than publicly disclosed.

Chinese companies create numerous shell companies faster than the Department of Commerce can track them, while export controls remain challenging as semiconductor chips are small, easily concealed, and produced by the millions.

When asked about potential additional sanctions, the official said the department had “nothing to announce at this time,” the report added.

DeepSeek did not respond to our requests for comment about the allegations. Amazon, Microsoft, and Google also did not immediately respond to requests for comment about their continued offering of DeepSeek models.

The detailed allegations suggest US officials are building a comprehensive case regarding the company’s activities, potentially setting the stage for more restrictive measures against Chinese AI firms operating in global markets.

Kategorie: Hacking & Security

College grads face a chaotic, nearly indiscernible IT job market

24 Červen, 2025 - 12:00

College grads are being screened out by AI before humans ever see their resumes, even as overwhelmed recruiters list “entry-level” jobs requiring years of experience. At the same time, hiring slowed sharply in April and May across all industries — including cybersecurity.

In April, employer hiring fell to its slowest pace in more than a decade, excluding the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. “It’s happening in every industry,” according to a study by the nonprofit ISC2 (International Information System Security Certification Consortium).

Despite strong hiring intentions in late 2024, the cybersecurity field continues to face growing economic pressure. Hiring alone won’t solve skills shortages; organizations must also focus on retention, especially as the cost of an average US hire is nearly $5,000, according to the ISC2 study.

The study focused on hiring in cybersecurity roles, but it found more broadly that many organizations now prioritize soft skills and diverse backgrounds over technical expertise for a number of IT roles, reflecting a shift in a confusing job market. The research also found that certifications now outrank both education and experience when hiring for junior roles and more than half of hiring managers say they’ve passed on candidates because of social media activity.

ISC2 also found that many organizations are hiring people without technical chops for IT roles, preferring candidates with non-technical skills such as teamwork, problem-solving, and analytical thinking. However, a gap remains between expectations and realistic capabilities; for instance, while cloud security is deemed essential, few believe entry-level workers are ready to handle it.

When they do hire for tech roles, 90% of managers prefer IT experience and 89% prefer certifications over formal education.

ISC2 research shows many managers set unrealistic expectations for entry-level cybersecurity roles, despite this group’s potential to fill key skills gaps with proper support. For example, a third of hiring managers ask for advanced certifications like the CISSP in junior roles, even though they require multiple years of experience. Many of those certifications are intended to support more experienced cybersecurity professionals, not entry- and junior-level positions.

For example, 38% of hiring managers require the CISA (ISACA) certification for entry-level positions, even though the certification demands a minimum of five years of professional experience in information systems auditing, control, assurance or security. Likewise, hiring managers expect around a third of entry- (34%) and junior-level (33%) candidates to have the (ISC2) certification, which also requires a minimum of five years of cumulative, paid experience in cybersecurity.

Internships (55%) and apprenticeships (46%) are increasingly used to source talent, especially in sectors such as education, government, and energy, ISC2 said.

Despite concerns about attrition (58%), most managers have the budget for training (75%) and staffing (73%), seeing early-career development as fast, cost-effective, and strategic. Many also hire from non-tech academic backgrounds, recognizing the value of diverse perspectives.

Kategorie: Hacking & Security

Microsoft and OpenAI: Will they opt for the nuclear option?

24 Červen, 2025 - 12:00

The fight between Microsoft and OpenAI over what Microsoft should get for its $13 billion investment in the AI company has gone from nasty to downright toxic, with each of the companies considering strategies against the other that can only be described as their nuclear options.

The stakes couldn’t be higher.

Microsoft needs access to OpenAI technologies to keep its worldwide lead in AI and grow its valuation beyond its current more than $3.5 trillion. OpenAI needs Microsoft to sign a deal so the company can go public via an IPO. Without an IPO, the company isn’t likely to keep its highly valued AI researchers — they’ll probably be poached by companies willing to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for the talent.

How did things get so down and dirty? What comes next? To find out, let’s look at what started it all: that potential OpenAI IPO.

Chasing a $300 billion+ IPO

OpenAI was originally created as a non-profit with the sole goal of making sure AI was developed and used in an ethical manner. Founders, including current CEO Sam Altman and tech entrepreneur Elon Musk among others, said they wanted the technology to be “used in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return.”

But that was before it became clear that trillions of dollars were at stake. So, now the company wants to restructure itself in a way that would include a for-profit focus and allow it to launch an IPO. If the IPO were launched today, the company would be worth an estimated $300 billion. Given that it won’t be launched until next year, the stakes are likely even higher.

Before OpenAI can go public, it must get approval for its restructuring from California, where the company is based, and Delaware, where the company is incorporated. To gain those approvals, it needs to ink a deal with Microsoft, its earliest and primary investor.

Because of the peculiarities of OpenAI’s non-profit founding, Microsoft and OpenAI never made clear how Microsoft would be paid off if OpenAI went public. They’ve been sparring about it for more than a year. Now, the fight has become a steel-cage deathmatch.

Choosing their nuclear options

For its $13 billion investment in OpenAI, Microsoft received sole rights to OpenAI technologies, which it used to build its line of Copilot generative AI (genAI) tools. But nothing in the agreement specified what might happen if OpenAI were to go public.

Two issues are in play: What percentage of the company Microsoft should get for its investment, and whether Microsoft will get long-term exclusive access to OpenAI technologies.

The Financial Times reports that in negotiations over the past year, the companies have discussed Microsoft getting anywhere from a 20% to 49% equity stake in the OpenAI, which means the companies might be $100 billion apart in what they think should be done. They’re also still battling over whether Microsoft will continue to get exclusive rights to certain OpenAI technologies.

For now, things are at an increasingly bitter impasse. Both companies are considering options that could threaten the other’s existence.

According to the Wall Street Journal, OpenAI is considering publicly accusing Microsoft of anticompetitive behavior. It might also ask the US government to review their contract to see whether it violates antitrust laws.

Antitrust suits are Microsoft’s biggest nightmare. One such suit laid the company low during the late 1980s and 1990s and led to a “lost decade” in which Microsoft became an also-ran in the most important new technologies, including the internet, social media, and mobile computing.

Google, Meta, Apple, and Amazon are all currently embroiled in federal antitrust suits and investigations, while Microsoft has remained — for now — untouched. But the US government is quietly investigating whether Microsoft’s AI, cloud, and productivity suite technologies have been used to violate antitrust laws. OpenAI telling the feds Microsoft violated antitrust laws in their agreement could go a long way towards turning the investigation into an outright prosecution. And in prosecutions, anything can happen, including Microsoft being broken into pieces, even spinning off its AI capabilities.

Microsoft is mulling a nuclear option of its own — it might walk away from negotiations and, in the words of the Financial Times, “rely on its existing commercial contract to retain access to OpenAI’s technology until 2030.” If that were to happen, OpenAI might not be able to go public. That would endanger a $400 billion investment in the company from Softbank and other investors.

Hovering over it all is an even bigger wildcard. Microsoft’s and OpenAI’s existing agreement dramatically curtails Microsoft’s rights to OpenAI technologies if the technologies reach what is called artificial general intelligence (AGI) — the point at which AI becomes capable of human reasoning. AGI wasn’t defined in that agreement. But Altman has said he believes AGI might be reached as early as this year.

If he declares that OpenAI’s technologies have reached AGI, all bets for what might happen are off. At that point, we’d be in uncharted territory with judges trying to decide whether AGI had really been reached or not.

It’s not likely Altman will do that, because it would hand over OpenAI’s fate to the legal system, something he certainly doesn’t want. On the other hand, given the increasing bitterness of this fight, anything could happen.

Who will be the winner in all this? My bet is still on Microsoft. It’s got enough cash and revenue to wait things out. OpenAI has more to lose than Microsoft.

Expect OpenAI to blink first.

Kategorie: Hacking & Security

Windows 11 Insider Previews: What’s in the latest build?

24 Červen, 2025 - 09:41

Windows 11 24H2 has been released, but behind the scenes, Microsoft is constantly working to improve the newest version of Windows. The company frequently rolls out public preview builds to members of its Windows Insider Program, allowing them to test out — and even help shape — upcoming features.

Skip to the latest builds

The Windows Insider program is divided into four channels:

The Canary Channel is where platform changes (such as major updates to the Windows kernel and new APIs) are previewed. These changes are not tied to a particular Windows release and may never ship at all. Little documentation is provided, and builds are likely to be very unstable. This channel is best for highly technical users.
The Dev Channel is where new features are introduced for initial testing, regardless of which Windows release they’ll eventually end up in. This channel is best for technical users and developers and builds in it may be unstable and buggy.
In the Beta Channel, you’ll get more polished features that will be deployed in the next major Windows release. This channel is best for early adopters, and Microsoft says your feedback in this channel will have the most impact.
The Release Preview Channel typically doesn’t see action until shortly before a new feature update is rolled out. It’s meant for final testing of an upcoming release and is best for those who want the most stable builds.

The Beta and Release Preview Channels also receive bug-fix builds for the currently shipping version of Windows 11. See “How to preview and deploy Windows 10 and 11 updates” for more details about the four channels and how to switch to a different channel.

Not everyone can participate in the Windows 11 Insider program, because the new operating system has more stringent system requirements than Windows 10. If your PC fails to meet the minimum hardware requirements for Windows 11, you cannot join the Windows 11 Insider Program. (See “How to check if your PC can run Windows 11.”)

Below you’ll find information about the Windows 11 preview builds that have been announced by Microsoft in the past six months. (For the Release Preview Channel, we cover builds released for the current version of Windows 11, not for earlier versions.) For each build, we’ve included the date of its release, which Insider channel it was released to, a summary of what’s in the build, and a link to Microsoft’s announcement about it.

Note: If you’re looking for information about updates being rolled out to all Windows 11 users, not previews for Windows Insiders, see “Windows 11: A guide to the updates.”

The latest Windows 11 Insider preview builds Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.4452

Release date: June 23, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

In this build, Copilot+ PCs get a new Windows Recall homepage, which shows you your most recent snapshots so you can quickly return to what you were previously doing, and also displays the top three apps and websites you have spent the most time on in the past 24 hours.

In addition, those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get new features being rolled out gradually, including the option to move the hardware indicators for brightness, volume, airplane mode, and virtual desktops to different positions on your screen.

Some additional improvements are being gradually rolled out to the same group, including the addition of a Boolean to the Configure Start Pins policy to allow admins to apply Start menu pins once. This means that a user will receive admin pins on day 0 but can then make any changes to their Start pinned layout and have those safeguarded. These changes can be optionally applied through the existing configuration service provider (CSP).

A handful of bug fixes are rolling out to the same group, including one that addresses an issue in which File Explorer Home only showed a single folder (like Desktop) and nothing else for some people.

Several bugs have been fixed for everyone in the Beta Channel, including one in which the Windows Vista boot sound played instead of the Windows 11 boot sound.

There are 10 known issues in this build, including one in which after you do a PC reset under Settings > System > Recovery, your build version may incorrectly show as Build 26100 instead of Build 26120. This will not prevent you from getting future Beta Channel updates, which will resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.4452.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5661

Release date: June 23, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

In addition, those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get new features being rolled out gradually, including the option to move the hardware indicators for brightness, volume, airplane mode, and virtual desktops to different positions on your screen.

The same group also gets a variety of bug fixes rolled out gradually, including one for a bug in which the File Explorer Home only showed a single folder (like Desktop) and nothing else for some people.

Everyone in the Dev Channel gets several bug fixes, including for one in which the Windows Vista boot sound played instead of the Windows 11 boot sound.

There are 10 known issues in this build, including one in which after you do a PC reset under Settings > System > Recovery, your build version may incorrectly show as Build 26100 instead of Build 26200. This will not prevent you from getting future Dev Channel updates, which will resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5661.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27881

Release date: June 19, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This build introduces speech recapto Narrator. It lets you keep track of what Narrator has said and offers access to it for quick reference. With it, you can quickly access spoken content, follow along with live transcription, and copy what Narrator last said, using keyboard shortcuts.

A number of bugs have also been fixed, including one in which File Explorer crashed when the user tapped the View button using touch.

There are four known issues in this build, including one in which if you are joining the Canary Channel on a new Copilot+ PC from the Dev Channel, Release Preview Channel, or retail, you will lose Windows Hello PIN and biometrics to sign into your PC. You should be able to re-create your PIN by clicking Set up my PIN.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27881.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26100.4482 (KB5060829)

Release date: June 19, 2025

Released to: Release Preview Channel

This build gradually rolls out a number of new features, including automatic icon resizing in the taskbar to fit more apps, and a new Screen Curtain feature that blacks out the screen while Narrator reads content aloud. Also new is the ability add custom words to the dictionary in voice access.

In addition, several bug fixes are being immediately rolled out, including one that improves the Copilot key’s reliability and resolves an issue that prevented users from restarting Copilot after using the key.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26100.4482.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.4441

Release date: June 13, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

In this build, those with Copilot+ PCs in the European Economic area get the option to export their Recall snapshots to be shared with third-party apps and websites. When they open Recall for the first time and opt into saving snapshots, they will be shown their unique Recall export code. The Recall export code will be needed if they ever choose to export their Recall snapshots to share with a trusted app or website in the future.

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get a variety of new features being gradually rolled out, including a bigger clock with seconds in the notification center.

The same group also gets a variety of bug fixes rolled out gradually, including one for an issue in which folders opened outside of File Explorer would open it in a new File Explorer tab, but the tab wasn’t put in focus.

There are nine known issues in this build, including one in which after you do a PC reset under Settings > System > Recovery, your build version may incorrectly show as Build 26100 instead of Build 26120. This will not prevent you from getting future Beta Channel updates, which will resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.4441.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5651

Release date: June 13, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

In this build, Copilot+ PCs get agents that can help make it easier to find and change settings on PCs. Rather than dig through settings, you’ll be able to simply describe what you need help with like, “how to control my PC by voice” or “my mouse pointer is too small” and an agent will recommend the right steps you can take to address the issue.

In addition, those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get a variety of new features being gradually rolled out, including a bigger clock with seconds in the notification center.

There are 13 known issues in this build, including one in which after you do a PC reset under Settings > System > Recovery, your build version may incorrectly show as Build 26100 instead of Build 26200. This will not prevent you from getting future Dev Channel updates, which will resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5651.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.4250

Release date: June 9, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get a variety of new features being gradually rolled out, including a larger scrollable Start menu. The menu automatically resizes itself according to the size of your screen, and offers two views, category and grid. In addition, the “Search permissions” and “Searching Windows” settings pages have been combined so you can access all the Windows Search settings under a single page via Settings > Privacy & security > Search.

The same group also gets a variety of bug fixes rolled out gradually, including one for a bug in which input did not work for some Insiders, including when typing into Search, and with the Chinese pinyin IME candidate window, clipboard history, and the emoji panel.

For everyone in the Beta Channel, the build fixes a bug in which some people might have seen severe discoloration when connecting their PC to some older Dolby Vision displays.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.4250.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5641

Release date: June 9, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

Those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get a variety of new features being gradually rolled out, including a larger scrollable Start menu. The menu automatically resizes itself according to the size of your screen, and offers two views, category and grid. In addition, the “Search permissions” and “Searching Windows” settings pages have been combined so you can access all the Windows Search settings under a single page via Settings > Privacy & security > Search.

For everyone in the Dev Channel, the build fixes a bug in which some people might have seen severe discoloration when connecting their PC to some older Dolby Vision displays.

There are 12 known issues in this build, including one in which after you do a PC reset under Settings > System > Recovery, your build version may incorrectly show as Build 26100 instead of Build 26200. This will not prevent you from getting future Dev Channel updates, which will resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5641.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27871

Release date: June 4, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

In this build, IT administrators can use Microsoft Intune to control the energy saver settings on Windows 11 PCs through group policies and MDM configurations.

A number of bugs have also been fixed, including one in which when Virtualization Based Security was enabled, applications dependent on virtualization, such as VMware Workstation, lost the ability to run unless the “Windows Hypervisor Platform” Windows optional component was installed on the system.

There are two known issues in this build, including one in which if you are joining the Canary Channel on a new Copilot+ PC from the Dev Channel, Release Preview Channel, or retail, you will lose Windows Hello PIN and biometrics to sign into your PC. You should be able to re-create your PIN by clicking Set up my PIN.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27871.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.4230

Release date: June 2, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get a new dedicated settings page for quick machine recovery, which can be found under System > Recovery > Quick machine recovery. This makes it easier to manage recovery options directly from Settings. This is being gradually rolled out.

A variety of bug fixes are being rolled out gradually to the same group, including one addressing a bug that caused File Explorer to crash performing various actions, such as when deleting files.

For everyone in the Beta Channel, a bug is fixed in which when Virtualization Based Security was enabled, applications dependent on virtualization, such as VMware Workstation, would lose the ability to run unless the “Windows Hypervisor Platform” Windows optional component is installed on the system.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.4230.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5622

Release date: June 2, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

In this build, those with Copilot+ PCs get a new action in Click to Do, Draft with Copilot in Word. Select text, press the Windows key and click simultaneously, and choose Draft with Copilot in Word. Copilot will create an initial draft based on the text.

Those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get new features being rolled out gradually, including quick machine recovery, designed to help Windows 11 devices recover from widespread boot issues by applying remediations through the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE).

The same group also gets several bug fixes, including for an issue in which File Explorer crashed when performing various actions, such as deleting files.

There are eight known issues in this build, including one in which taskbar icons may appear small even though the setting to show smaller taskbar buttons is configured as “never.”

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5622.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27868

Release date: May 29, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

In this build, voice access has been redesigned to help you more easily discover and learn about new features. You can launch or dismiss this new experience from the settings menu.

Several bugs have been fixed, including one that was causing pen input to be non-responsive on some PCs.

There are six known issues in this build, including one in which if you are joining the Canary Channel on a new Copilot+ PC from the Dev Channel, Release Preview Channel, or retail, you will lose Windows Hello PIN and biometrics to sign into your PC. You should be able to re-create your PIN by clicking Set up my PIN.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27868.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.4161

Release date: May 23, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

This build begins the rollout of a new Click-to-Do action that uses Microsoft’s Copilot AI assistant to rewrite or elaborate on selected text. To get started, select text, then press the Windows key and click, then choose the Draft with Copilot in Word action. (This feature requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.)

In addition, those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get several new features, including the ability to add, remove, and rearrange lock screen widgets such as Weather, Watchlist, Sports, Traffic, and more. Any widget that supports the small sizing option can be added here. To customize your lock screen widgets, navigate to Settings > Personalization > Lock screen. Note that these features are being rolled out gradually.

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates also get a variety of bug fixes rolled out gradually, including one for a bug in which the Describe image feature of narrator wasn’t working.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.4161.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27863

Release date: May 23, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This build adds support for post-quantum signature algorithm ML-DSA in NCrypt and BCrypt cryptography API surfaces, as well as Crypt32 certificate APIs. Three variants are supported, ML-DSA 44, 65, and 87.

Several bugs have been fixed, including one in which Windows Sandbox was not working and showed error 0xc0370106 on launch.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27863.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.4151

Release date: May 19, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get several new features, including AI actions in File Explorer, which offers a set of AI-related tools when you right-click a file. For now, the only AI tools available are for image files, including Bing Visual Search for searching the web using an image instead of text, as well as several AI-related image-editing capabilities. Eventually, other features will be added, such as summarizing documents using Copilot. These features, including the ones related to images, are being rolled out gradually.

The same group also gets a variety of bug fixes being rolled out gradually, including one that addresses a bug in which if File Explorer was maximized and you clicked the new tab button, it would unmaximize the window.

There are 12 known issues in this build, including one in which after you do a PC reset under Settings > System > Recovery, your build version may incorrectly show as Build 26100 instead of Build 26120. This will not prevent you from getting future Beta Channel updates, which will resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.4151.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5603

Release date: May 19, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

Those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get several new features, including AI actions in File Explorer, which offers a set of AI-related tools when you right-click a file. For now, the only AI tools available are for image files, including Bing Visual Search for searching the web using an image instead of text, as well as several AI-related image-editing capabilities. Eventually, other features will be added, such as summarizing documents using Copilot. These features, including the ones related to images, are being rolled out gradually.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5603.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26100.4188 (KB5058499)

Release date: May 19, 2025

Released to: Release Preview Channel

This build gradually rolls out a wide variety of new features, including a new Copilot action in Click to Do. When you highlight text or an image, Click to Do offers an Ask Copilot option. Selecting it opens Microsoft Copilot with your content in the prompt box. You can send the selected text or image directly to the Copilot app to complete your prompt.

In addition, IT admins can manage energy saver settings on Windows 11 PCs through group policies and MDM configurations using Microsoft Intune. This feature helps extend battery life by limiting background activity, dimming the screen, and contributing to environmental sustainability. To configure the policy, go to the Local Group Policy under Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Power Management > Energy Saver Settingsand select Enable Energy Saver to Always Be On.

A number of bug fixes are also being gradually rolled out, including one for a bug in which Settings crashed at times when loading information about Bluetooth devices.

Several bugs are being fixed immediately, including one in which some devices with BitLocker on removable drives encountered a blue screen error after resuming from sleep or hybrid-booting.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26100.4188.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27858

Release date: May 16, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This build includes a new system tray icon on the taskbar that makes it easier to find and use emojis, GIFs, Kaomoji, etc. It also fixes a variety of bugs, including an explorer.exe crash related to snap layouts, which happened when dragging a window or hovering over the maximize button in a window.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27858.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3964

Release date: May 12, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

This build introduces a new agent in Settings on Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ PCS. Using it, you can describe what you need help with, such as “how to control my PC by voice” or “my mouse pointer is too small,” and the agent will recommend steps you can take to address the issue. Support for AMD- and Intel-powered Copilot+ PCs is coming soon.

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get new features being rolled out gradually, including a new FAQs section on the Settings > System > Aboutpage to provide help with using your PC.

The same group also gets a variety of bug fixes being rolled out gradually, including for an issue that caused live captions to crash and another that could make some apps like Word hang when trying to print.

There are 12 known issues in this build, including one in which after you do a PC reset under Settings > System > Recovery, your build version may incorrectly show as Build 26100 instead of Build 26120. This will not prevent you from getting future Beta Channel updates, which will resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3964.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5600

Release date: May 12, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

This build introduces a new set of intelligent text actions using Click to Do on AMD- and Intel-powered Copilot+ PCs. You can Use Win key + mouse-click or Win key + Q to select a text block and drag to select the text that you want. You’ll see options to summarize, create a bulleted list, or to help you rewrite your text so it sounds more causal, more formal, or more polished.

A wide variety of bug fixes are being rolled out gradually to those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, including for an issue that caused File Explorer Home to hang when loading and another that caused live captions to crash.

There are 10 known issues in this build, including one in which after you do a PC reset under Settings > System > Recovery, your build version may incorrectly show as Build 26100 instead of Build 26200. This will not prevent you from getting future Dev Channel updates, which will resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5600.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3950

Release date: May 5, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get new features being rolled out gradually, including one that gives IT administrators the ability to use Microsoft Intune to control energy savings on Windows 11 PCs through group policies and MDM configurations.

The same group also gets a variety of bug fixes, including for a bug in which Windows’ startup sound would not play, even though it was enabled.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3950.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5581

Release date: May 5, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

In this build, those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get new features being rolled out gradually, including one that gives IT administrators the ability to use Microsoft Intune to control energy savings on Windows 11 PCs through group policies and MDM configurations.

The same group gets several new bug fixes, including for a bug in which Windows’ startup sound would not play, even though it was enabled.

There are seven known issues in this build, including one in which live captions have been crashing.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5570.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3941

Release date: April 25, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

In this build, those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get several new features and minor improvements, including a new profanity filter setting for voice typing. This group will also have several bugs fixed, including one that caused apps to appear blank, and another in which Windows Hello facial recognition would not work for login for some Insiders. The new feature and bug fixes are gradually rolling out.

Everyone in the Beta Channel gets a fix for a bug that caused Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) to not work and the option “Fix problems using Windows Update” option under Settings > Recovery to also not work.

There are 13 known issues in this build, including one in which after you do a PC reset under Settings > System > Recovery, your build version may incorrectly show as Build 26100 instead of Build 26120. This will not prevent you from getting future Beta Channel updates, which will resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3941.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5570

Release date: April 25, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

In this build, those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get several new features and minor improvements, including a new profanity filter setting for voice typing. This group will also have several bugs fixed, including one that caused apps to appear blank, and another in which Windows Hello facial recognition would not work for login for some Insiders.

Everyone in the Dev Channel gets a fix for a bug that caused Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) to not work and the option “Fix problems using Windows Update” option under Settings > Recovery to also not work.

There are six known issues in this build, including one in which Windows Sandbox may fail to launch with a 0x800705b4 error. If this occurs, try reinstalling Sandbox by unchecking Sandbox under “Turn Windows features on or off” to uninstall it, then reboot, go back to “Turn Windows features on or off” and check Sandbox to reinstall it and reboot again.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5570.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27842

Release date: April 23, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This build previews a new UI that is used when a PC unexpectedly restarts. It also fixes a variety of bugs, including one in which the Smart App Control icon wasn’t displaying correctly in the Windows Security app.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27842.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5562

Release date: April 21, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

In this build, those with Copilot+ PCs get two new text actions in Click to Do, including the “Practice in Reading Coach” Click to Do action that can increase fluency and pronunciation.

In addition, those in the Dev Channel who have turned a toggle on to receive the latest updates get new features being rolled out gradually, including several improvements in voice access and to the notification widgets settings page, so that they can control the number of notifications per feed or dashboard.

Those in the Dev Channel who have turned a toggle on to receive the latest updates get several bugs fixed, including one that was causing Start menu to crash when creating folders. Everyone in the Dev Channel gets additional bug fixes, including for a bug that didn’t allow some apps like Spotify to install from the Microsoft Store.

There are 14 known issues in this build, including one in which Windows Recall is unable to automatically save snapshots, and the setting can’t be turned on in Settings.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5562.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3872

Release date: April 21, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

In this build, those with Copilot+ PCs get two new text actions in Click to Do, including the “Practice in Reading Coach” Click to Do action that can increase fluency and pronunciation.

In addition, those in the Beta Channel who have turned a toggle on to receive the latest updates get new features being rolled out gradually, including several improvements in voice access.

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned a toggle on to receive the latest updates get several bug fixes, including one that was causing Start menu to crash when creating folders. Everyone in the Beta Channel gets one bug fix, for a bug that didn’t allow some apps like Spotify to install from the Microsoft Store

There are 13 known issues in this build, including one in which after you do a PC reset under Settings > System > Recovery, your build version may incorrectly show as Build 26100 instead of Build 26120. This will not prevent you from getting future Beta Channel updates, which will resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3872.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5551

Release date: April 11, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

This build begins the rollout of natural language search for settings in the Windows search box on the taskbar for users with Copilot+ PCs. For example, you can use your own words to find settings like “change my theme” or “about my PC.” You no longer need to remember the exact setting name you are looking for.

In addition, those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get new features being rolled out gradually, including one in which you can read content such as full articles, slideshows, and videos directly within your MSN feed in the widgets board.

Those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get several bug fixes, including for a bug that caused File Explorer Home to crash for some Insiders. Everyone in the Dev Channel gets a fix for Windows Sandbox, which was not working.

There are 12 known issues in this build, including one in which Windows Recall is unable to automatically save snapshots, and the setting can’t be turned on in Settings.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5551.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3863

Release date: April 11, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

In addition, those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get new features being rolled out gradually, including one in which you can read content such as full articles, slideshows, and videos directly within your MSN feed in the widgets board.

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned a toggle on to receive the latest updates get several bug fixes, including for a bug that caused File Explorer Home to crash for some Insiders. Everyone in the Beta Channel gets a fix for Windows Sandbox, which was not working.

There are 14 known issues in this build, including one in which after you do a PC reset under Settings > System > Recovery, your build version may incorrectly show as Build 26100 instead of Build 26120. This will not prevent you from getting future Beta Channel updates, which will resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3863.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26100.3902 (KB5055627)

Release date: April 10, 2025

Released to: Release Preview Channel

This build gradually rolls out several new features for Copilot+ PCs, including Windows Recall (preview) in which you can quickly find and get back to any app, website, image, or document by describing its content. To use Recall, you need to opt in to saving snapshots, which are images of your activity, and enroll in Windows Hello to confirm your presence so only you can access them. Those with Copilot+ PCs can also search by describing what they’re looking for, without having to remember file names, exact words in file content, or settings names.

A number of new features are being rolled out immediately for all PCs, not just Copilot+ PCs, including one in which you get an estimated time for how long your PC will be offline to install updates from Windows Update. Several bugs are also being fixed, including one in which some content pages with JPEG images were not displaying.

There is one known issue in this build, in which Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) may not work, and you may not be able to use the “Fix problems using Windows Update” option under Settings > Recovery.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26100.3902.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5518

Release date: April 3, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

Those in the Dev Channel who have opted to receive the latest updates get several new features that are being rolled out gradually, including taskbar icon scaling — when your taskbar starts to get crowded with pinned or open apps, the icons automatically scale down to a smaller size. This lets you keep more apps visible and accessible without having to use a secondary menu.

Dev Channel users who have opted to receive the latest updates get three bug fixes, one in which external graphics cards connected over Thunderbolt were unexpectedly not discoverable in some cases; another in which Hyper-V Manager erroneously reported 0% CPU usage for VMs in some scenarios; and another for those with Copilot+ PCs who saw semantic search stop working until their PCs were rebooted.

There are 11 known issues in this build, including one in which Recall is unable to automatically save snapshots, and the setting can’t be turned on in Settings.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5518.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3671

Release date: April 3, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

Those in the Beta Channel who agreed to receive the latest updates get several new features being rolled out gradually, including taskbar icon scaling — when your taskbar starts to get crowded with pinned or open apps, the icons automatically scale down to a smaller size. This lets you keep more apps visible and accessible without having to use a secondary menu.

Those in the Beta Channel who get the latest updates get two bug fixes, one in which external graphics cards connected over Thunderbolt were unexpectedly not discoverable in some cases, and another in which Hyper-V Manager erroneously reported 0% CPU usage for VMs in some scenarios.

There are 12 known issues in this build, including one in which after you do a PC reset under Settings > System > Recovery, your build version may incorrectly show as Build 26100 instead of Build 26120. This will not prevent you from getting future Beta Channel updates, which will resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3671.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5516

Release date: March 28, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

This build includes improved search tools for AMD and Intel-powered Copilot+ PCs. When searching in File Explorer, the Windows search box on the taskbar, or in Settings, you can type plain-English searches without having to remember file names, exact words in file content, or settings names. In addition, those with AMD and Intel-powered Copilot+ PCs can find photos in the cloud by using plain-English searches.

Those who have turned on the toggle to receive changes as soon as they come out get a speech recap in Narrator which keeps track of what Narrator has spoken and access it for quick reference. They also get a variety of changes and improvements, including one in which on Copilot+ PCs, they can now access Click to Do from the Start menu and can pin it to Start and the taskbar.

They also receive a variety of bug fixes, including one in which File Explorer was very slow to close for some Insiders when closing it using the X button.

Everyone in the Dev Channel gets a bug fixed in which the toggle to get the latest updates as soon they are available via Settings > Windows Update didn’t render correctly and turned itself off.

There are 13 known issues in this build, including one in which Windows Recall is unable to automatically save snapshots, and the setting can’t be turned on in Settings.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5516.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3653

Release date: March 28, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned a toggle on to receive the latest updates get several new features being rolled out gradually, including a speech recap feature in Narrator that keeps track of what Narrator has spoken and lets you access it for quick reference. There are also a variety of changes and improvements, including one in which on Copilot+ PCs, users can now access Click to Do from the Start menu and can pin it to Start and the taskbar.

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned a toggle on to receive the latest updates get several bug fixes, including for a bug in which the taskbar icons weren’t increasing in size as they should when using your PC in a tablet posture.

Two bugs are fixed for everyone in the Beta Channel, including one in which the toggle to get the latest updates as soon they are available via Settings > Windows Update did not render correctly and automatically turned itself off.

There are 13 known issues in this build, including one in which after you do a PC reset under Settings > System > Recovery, your build version may incorrectly show as Build 26100 instead of Build 26120. This will not prevent you from getting future Beta Channel updates that will resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3653.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27823

Release date: March 26, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This update, in the words of Microsoft, “includes a small set of general improvements and fixes that improve the overall experience” of using Windows. It also includes new “top cards” under Settings > System > About. Top cards provide an easy way to view your PC’s key specifications—processor, RAM, storage, and GPU.

The build fixes a variety of bugs, including one in which Settings could crash when interacting with Bluetooth & Devices > Cameras.

There are three known issues in this build, including one in which if you are joining the Canary Channel on a new Copilot+ PC from the Dev Channel, Release Preview Channel, or retail, you will lose Windows Hello PIN and biometrics to sign into your PC. You should be able to re-create your PIN by clicking Set up my PIN.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27823.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3585

Release date: March 24, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get several bug fixes, including for a bug in which File Explorer was very slow to close via the X button.

Two bugs are fixed for everyone in the Beta Channel, including one in which the toggle to get the latest updates as they are available via Settings > Windows Update did not render correctly and automatically turned itself off.

There are 16 known issues in this build, including one in which Windows Recall is unable to automatically save snapshots.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3585.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5510

Release date: March 24, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

In this build the Dev Channel is jumping ahead to receive 26200 series builds. This means that once you install it, you cannot switch to the Beta Channel. If you are in the Dev Channel and want to switch to the Beta Channel, don’t install this build. Instead, pause updates in Windows Update, switch your channel to the Beta Channel and then un-pause updates.

There are 11 known issues in this build, including one in which Windows Recall is unable to automatically save snapshots, and the setting can’t be turned on in Settings.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5510.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26100.3624 (KB5053656)

Release date: March 24, 2025

Released to: Release Preview Channel

This build gradually rolls out several new features for Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ PCs, including natural-language search in Windows Search. Just describe what you’re looking for without having to remember specific file names, exact words in file content, or settings names.

In addition, the build includes the same set of improvements and bug fixes as a previous build, Build 26100.3613, such as Natural Language Commanding in voice access, available initially on Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ PCs.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26100.3624.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27818

Release date: March 19, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This update, in the words of Microsoft, “includes a small set of general improvements and fixes that improve the overall experience” of using Windows.

The build also fixes a variety of bugs, including one in which Remote Desktop sometimes froze when connecting.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27818.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26100.3613 (KB5053656)

Release date: March 18, 2025

Released to: Release Preview Channel

This build gradually rolls out a number of new features, including Natural Language Commanding in voice access, which lets users speak commands naturally, using filler words and synonyms, rather than rigid, predefined commands. It is available initially on Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ PCs.

Several bug fixes are also being rolled out gradually, including one in which the “see more” (…) menu in the File Explorer command bar opened in the wrong direction in some cases.

A variety of new bug fixes are being rolled out immediately, including one for a bug in which critical PowerShell modules required for device configuration were not executed under Windows Defender Application Control (WDAC) policies.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26100.3613.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3576

Release date: March 17, 2025

Released to: Dev and Beta Channels

In this build, those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get several new features, including one in which on Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ PCs, you can use natural language commands during voice access, rather than having to remember specific voice commands.

The same group gets several bug fixes, including one addressing a bug for users in managed environments, in which your Windows Recall snapshots would get deleted after installing Build 26120.3380 and after each reboot on that build.

There are 16 known issues in this build, including one in which Recall is unable to automatically save snapshots and the setting can’t be turned on in Settings, and another in which Recall is no longer able to save new snapshots or modify settings.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3576.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27813

Release date: March 12, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This update, in the words of Microsoft, “includes a small set of general improvements and fixes that improve the overall experience” of using Windows.

The build also fixes two bugs, one which the WDMAud system driver was causing some app crashes, and the other in which Settings > System > Display > Color Management did not always display the expected color profile list for the selected monitor.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27813.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3380

Release date: March 10, 2025

Released to: Dev and Beta Channels

In this build, those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get several new features, including one in which File Explorer displays a new Recommended section that is displayed as a carousel with thumbnail previews. This includes content such as files you frequently use, have recently downloaded, or added to your File Explorer Gallery. Users with a work/school account (Entra ID) will have additional types of recommendations available with this update.

Those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get several bug fixes, including for a bug in which windows.storage.dll led caused some apps to crash when files were opened in them.

There are 10 known issues in this build, including one in which Windows Recall is unable to automatically save snapshots, and the setting can’t be turned on in Settings.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3380.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27808

Release date: March 7, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

In this update, a change is being rolled out in the way Task Manager calculates CPU utilization for the Processes, Performance, and Users pages. Task Manager will now use the standard metrics to display CPU workload consistently across all pages and aligning with industry standards and third-party tools. For backward compatibility, a new optional column called CPU Utility is available (hidden by default) on the Details tab showing the previous CPU value used on the Processes page.

The build also fixes a number of bugs, including one that caused the search window to go blank for some Insiders when searching from the taskbar, due to a background crash.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27808.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22635.5015

Release date: February 28, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

In this build, those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates will see a new system tray icon on the taskbar, which lets you use emojis, GIFs, Kaomoji, etc. across all apps and surfaces in Windows in addition to using the Win + . keyboard shortcut. This new system tray icon can be changed by right-clicking on the icon to go to taskbar settings page.

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get a number of new bug fixes, including for a bug in which File Explorer Home crashed for some Insiders.

There are four known issues in this build, including one in which File Explorer is very slow to close for some Insiders when closing using the X button. This may also affect the other title bar buttons.

Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22635.5015.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3360

Release date: February 28, 2025

Released to: Dev and Beta Channels

In this build, those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get two new features being gradually rolled out, including one in which Task Manager changes the way it calculates CPU utilization for the Processes, Performance, and Users pages. Task Manager will now use the standard metrics to display CPU workload consistently across all pages and aligning with industry standards and third-party tools. Also being added is the ability to share directly to apps that support sharing in Windows when right-clicking on local files in File Explorer or the desktop.

Those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get several bug fixes, including for a bug which some people experienced Remote Desktop freezes on login, or frequent disconnect.

There are 11 known issues in this build, including one in which Windows Recall is unable to automatically save snapshots, and the setting can’t be turned on in Settings.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3360.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27802

Release date: February 28, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

In this update, new battery icons in Windows 11 communicate the battery status of your PC with a quick glance. Key changes include colored icons to indicate charging states, simplified overlays that don’t block the progress bar, and an option to turn on battery percentage.

The build also fixes several bugs, including one that was causing the login screen to crash when clicking the “sign-in options” link for some Insiders.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27802.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3291

Release date: February 21, 2025

Released to: Dev and Beta Channels

In this build, those with Copilot+ PCs can search photos saved in the cloud by using your own words to describe what you’re looking for in the Windows search box on the taskbar.

Those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get several bugs fixed, including one in which switching languages crashed live captions if audio was playing or the microphone was enabled.

There are 11 known issues in this build, including one in the Recall feature in which some users may see a message to “Make sure Recall is saving snapshots,” while the Settings page for Recall shows saving snapshots is enabled. Reboot your device to resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3291.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26100.3321 (KB5052093)

Release date: February 18, 2025

Released to: Release Preview Channel

This build gradually rolls out a number of new features, including one in which you can share files directly from a jump list on the taskbar, and another in which you can find out more information about a background image by hovering over the image or clicking the “Learn about this picture” icon.

A variety of bug fixes are also being gradually rolled out, including one in which when you enter a URL in the File Explorer address bar, it might not go to the location.

The build also immediately fixes a number of bugs, including one in which Remote Desktop stopped working.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26100.3321.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3281

Release date: February 14, 2025

Released to: Dev and Beta Channels

In this build, those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates have the ability to resume working on OneDrive files from your phone (iOS and Android) on your Windows 11 PC with a single click. In addition, when “Restore previous folder windows at logon” is enabled in File Explorer, you can now restore all the extra tabs that you previously had open in each File Explorer window.

Those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get several bug fixes, including for a bug in which if you tried to reset your password from the login screen, it wouldn’t work due to an underlying crash. Another fix addresses a bug for users who have a Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ PC, in which File Explorer search was unresponsive and required a reboot to start working.

There are 12 known issues in this build, including one in the Recall feature in which some users may see a message to “Make sure Recall is saving snapshots,” while the Settings page for Recall shows saving snapshots is enabled. Reboot your device to resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3281.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27788

Release date: February 5, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This update includes the first in-box public preview of Windows MIDI Services, a complete rewrite of MIDI on Windows for musicians. Windows MIDI Services handles MIDI 2.0 and improves MIDI 1.0 implementation, with automatic translation between the two. It works on 64-bit operating systems on all supported processors, including Arm64.

The build also gradually rolls out the ability to resume working on OneDrive files from your phone (iOS or Android) on your Windows 11 PC with a single click.

The build also fixes several bugs, including one that prevented scanning apps from detecting a connected scanner.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27788.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22635.4870

Release date: February 3, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

In this build, IT administrators in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates as soon as they are available get a new group policy called “Disable Widgets On Lock Screen,” which allows them to disable lock screen widgets without disabling widgets elsewhere on PCs they manage.

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get several bug fixes, including for a bug in which the Start menu crashed for some Insiders when they interacted with the letters in the apps list.

Several bugs have been fixed for everyone in the Beta Channel, including one in which PCs did not recognize that USB cameras were on after installing the January 2025 security update.

There are three known issues in this build, including one in which the home page of Settings may crash. If you are impacted by this, you should still be able to open specific Settings pages directly by searching for them from the taskbar.

Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22635.4870.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3073

Release date: January 31, 2025

Released to: Dev and Beta Channels

In this build, those who have Copilot+ PCs get a new feature in Windows Search, in which you can use your own words to find photos stored and saved in the cloud by describing what they are, such as “European castles” or “summer picnics.” In addition to photos stored locally on your Copilot+ PC, photos from the cloud will now show up in the search results as well. Exact matches for your keywords within the text of your cloud files will show in the search results.

The build also includes changes being gradually rolled out for all Windows 11 PCs. Those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates will see a Settings home page for commercial customers on PCs managed by an IT administrator. The feature will show some existing cards relevant to enterprise-managed PCs like “Recommended settings” and “Bluetooth devices,” as well as two new enterprise-specific device info and accessibility preferences cards. For commercial customers who also use their Microsoft account on their managed PC, there will also be a new accounts card indicating the presence of both work/school and Microsoft account types.

Those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates also get several bug fixes, including for a bug in which minimized File Explorer windows might not have rendered correctly when restored.

Everyone in the Dev Channel gets several bug fixes, including for one in which the display of some games appeared oversaturated when you used Auto HDR.

There are 18 known issues in this build, including one in the Recall feature in which some users may see a “Make sure Recall is saving snapshots” message while the Settings page for Recall shows saving snapshots is enabled. Reboot your device to resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3073.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27783

Release date: January 29, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

In this update, users signed into Windows with a Microsoft account will be able to view files that have been shared with the account, such as email, Teams chat, etc., in File Explorer. Commercial customers signed in with a Microsoft Entra ID account will also be able to view files that they have shared with others. You can access this feature by launching File Explorer Home and clicking on the ‘Shared’ tab item.

The build also fixes several bugs, including one in which taskbar preview windows sometimes didn’t display when hovering over open apps in the taskbar.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27783.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22635.4805

Release date: January 24, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

In this build, those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates as soon as they are available get a change to Snap in Windows 11 in which inline messaging will now appear when you accidentally invoke the Snap Bar when dragging an app to the top middle of your desktop or Snap Flyout when hovering over the Minimize or Maximize button of an app. This is designed to provide guidance on snapping app windows and educating users on the keyboard shortcuts for quickly snapping app windows in the future.

This group also gets new keyboard shortcuts in Narrator scan mode for quickly jumping to list items and to the beginning or end of large elements such as tables or lists. These changes are gradually rolling out.

There are five known issues in this build, including one in which the Home page of Settings may crash. If you are impacted by this, you should still be able to open specific Settings pages directly by searching for them from the taskbar.

Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22635.4805.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3000

Release date: January 24, 2024

Released to: Dev Channel

In this build, those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get new battery icons, including colored icons to indicate charging states, simplified overlays that don’t block the progress bar, and an option to turn on battery percentage. The same group also gets several bug fixes, including for a bug in File Explorer in which you sometimes would be unable to navigate by entering a path in the address bar. These changes are gradually rolling out.

There are 18 known issues in this build, including one in the Recall feature in which some users may see a message to “Make sure Recall is saving snapshots” while the Settings page for Recall shows saving snapshots is enabled. Reboot your device to resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3000.)

Windows 11 Build 26100.3025 (KB5050094)

Release date: January 21, 2025

Released to: Release Preview Channel

This build gradually rolls out a number of new features, including one in which an icon will appear in the system tray when you use an app that supports Windows Studio Effects. This only occurs on a device that has a neural processing unit (NPU). Select the icon to open the Studio Effects page in Quick Settings.

The update also improves the previews that show when your cursor hovers over apps on the taskbar. In addition, the Windows Mobile Hotspot now supports 6 GHz connections. This new band requires chips that support the feature and updated drivers.

A variety of bug fixes are also being rolled out, including for a bug in which the Snipping Tool screenshots were distorted when you used two or more monitors that have different display scaling.

The build also immediately rolls out a change in which you will now have a standard Windows 11 taskbar after restoring from a backup via the Windows Setup experience (OOBE) on a new Windows PC.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26100.3025.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22635.4800

Release date: January 17, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

In this build, those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates as soon as they are available get a standard Windows 11 taskbar after restoring from a backup via the Windows Setup experience (OOBE) on a new Windows PC. You can still find your apps in the Start menu and Search, and you can pin apps to your taskbar. In addition, the build starts the rollout of the Settings home page for commercial customers on PCs managed by an IT administrator.

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get one bug fix, which includes increased support for text scaling in File Explorer, File Open/Save dialogs, and copy dialogs.

There are three known issues in this build, including one in which the Home page of Settings may crash. If you are impacted by this, you should still be able to open specific Settings pages directly by searching for them from the taskbar.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22635.4800.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27774

Release date: January 16, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This update includes a small set of tweaks that Microsoft says improves the overall experience of Windows 11. In addition, the Administrator protection can now be enabled from Windows Security settings under the Account Protection tab, which allows users to enable the feature without requiring help from IT admins.

The build also fixes several bugs, including one in which accent colored window borders were not displayed when enabled, shadows around windows were not displaying when enabled, and window launching (and other) animations were not showing.

There are three known issues in this build, including one in which Insiders joining the Canary Channel on a new Copilot+ PC from the Dev Channel, Release Preview Channel, or retail will lose Windows Hello PIN and biometrics to sign into the PC. You should be able to re-create your PIN by clicking Set up my PIN.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27774.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27768

Release date: January 9, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This update includes a small set of general changes that Microsoft says improve the overall experience of Windows 11. It also fixes several bugs, including one in which File Explorer sometimes lost focus on the search box while typing.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27768.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22635.4660

Release date: January 3, 2024

Released to: Beta Channel

In this build, those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates as soon as they are available get labels added to previously unlabeled actions on File Explorer’s context menu such as cut, copy, paste, rename, share, and delete.

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates also get several bug fixes for issues that impacted File Explorer’s performance and reliability.

Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22635.4660.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27766

Release date: January 3, 2024

Released to: Canary Channel

This update includes a small set of general improvements and fixes that Microsoft says improve the overall experience of Windows 11. It also fixes several bugs, including one in which some Insiders experienced frequent explorer.exe crashes after they clean-installed or reset their PC.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27766.)

Kategorie: Hacking & Security

Microsoft’s new genAI model to power agents in Windows 11

23 Červen, 2025 - 21:40

Microsoft is laying the groundwork for Windows 11 to morph into a genAI-driven OS.

The company on Monday announced a critical AI technology that will make it possible to run generative AI (genAI) agents on Windows without Internet connectivity.

Microsoft’s small language model, called Mu, is designed to respond to natural language queries within the Windows OS, the company said in a blog post Monday. Mu takes advantage of the neural processing units (NPUs) of Copilot PCs, Vivek Pradeep, vice president and distinguished engineer for Windows Applied Sciences, said in the post.

Three chip makers — Intel, AMD and Qualcomm — provide NPUs in Copilot PCs prebuilt with Windows 11.

Mu already powers an agent that handles queries in the Settings menus in a preview version of Windows 11 available to early adopters with Copilot+ PCs. The feature is available in the Windows 11 preview version 26200.5651 that shipped June 13.

The model provides a better understanding and context of queries, and “has been designed to operate efficiently, delivering high performance while running locally,” Pradeep wrote.

Microsoft is aggressively pushing genAI features into the core of Windows 11 and Microsoft 365. The company introduced a new developer stack called Windows ML 2.0 last month for developers to make AI features accessible in software applications.

The company is also developing feature- or application-specific AI models for Microsoft 365 applications.

The 330-million parameter Mu model is designed to reduce AI computing cycles so it can run locally on Windows 11 PCs. Laptops have limited hardware and battery life and need a cloud service for AI.

“This involved adjusting model architecture and parameter shapes to better fit the hardware’s parallelism and memory limits,” Pradeep wrote.

The model also generates high-quality responses with a better understanding of queries. Microsoft fine-tuned a custom Mu model for the Settings menu that could respond to ambiguous user queries on system settings. For example, the model can handle queries that do not specify whether to raise brightness on a main or secondary monitor.

The Mu encoder-decoder model breaks down large queries into a more compact representation of information, which is then used to generate responses. That’s different from large language models (LLMs), which are only decoder models and require all of the text to generate responses.

“By separating the input tokens from output tokens, Mu’s one-time encoding greatly reduces computation and memory overhead,” Pradeep said.

The encoder–decoder approach was significantly faster than LLMs such as Microsoft’s Phi-3.5, which is a decoder-only model. “When comparing Mu to a similarly fine-tuned Phi-3.5-mini, we found that Mu is nearly comparable in performance despite being one-tenth of the size,” Pradeep said.

Those gains are crucial for on-device and real-time applications. “Managing the extensive array of Windows settings posed its own challenges, particularly with overlapping functionalities,” Pradeep said.

The response time was under 500 milliseconds, which aligned with “goals for a responsive and reliable agent in Settings that scaled to hundreds of settings,” Pradeep said.

Microsoft has many genAI technologies that include OpenAI’s ChatGPT and its latest homegrown Phi 4 model, which can generate images, video and text.

Kategorie: Hacking & Security

Has Apple become addicted to ‘No’?

23 Červen, 2025 - 18:29

In a world loaded with existential challenge, it should not surprise anyone that Apple faces its own crisis. It should do what any cornered animal will always do and fight hard and dirty to regain freedom. That’s why it’s of concern to once again learn this weekend that Apple is “considering” acquisitions in the generative AI (genAI) space, because by this time in the fight, I want that chatter to be about acquisitions that have been made.

Look, anyone can consider making a purchase and then come up with a dozen reasons not to go through with it. That’s not hard at all, it’s the inevitable articulation of small-C conservatism, which tends to favor stasis over change. My concern is that Apple’s own growth mindset might have been replaced by a more conservative approach, which means that the company becomes really good at finding reasons not to do things, and less good at identifying when it really should do something.

No can’t be the default

Apple’s history is packed with conflict between good ideas the company rejected and brilliant ideas it chose to move forward with. It is arguable that some of the ideas the company has looked at historically are only now becoming viable devices. (I’m thinking of the speculated HomePod as an idea of that kind.) Apple executives have frequently discussed how the company is just as proud of the things it doesn’t do as of those it does. It’s a company instinctively good at saying “No” — until it finds a good reason to say “Yes.”

The problem is that when it comes to genAI, it still feels like there’s a lot of creative mileage to be had from injecting some creative chaos into the R&D crib. To achieve that, it seems necessary that Apple find the spleen to take a few risks on the M&A journey.

The company can’t simply wander down to the genAI development shops and find reasons not to purchase things; it needs to pick up all the shiniest things it comes across, using whatever financial muscle it takes to ensure they end up in Apple’s hold rather than elsewhere.

Why must it do this? Because genAI isn’t finished yet.

The genAI evolution continues

Sure, Apple’s widely disclosed challenges with Siri mean it is motivated to try new approaches to push that project ahead, but the truth is that no one — not even OpenAI — really has genAI that is anything other than a hint of what this tech is likely to be able to accomplish in a decade or two. We are still early in the AI race, and that means today’s winners can still lose and those at the back of the pack have an opportunity to get ahead.

So, it makes sense for Apple to take a few expensive risks, rather than staying inside the safe zone. Does Perplexity have a few tools that could boost Apple Intelligence? Then grab them. Are there others in AI with tools that could help make Siri smart and hardware products sing?

Bring them in. Take risks. Get hungry, be foolish. Make it happen.

It is also worth thinking about retention at this point.

Keep them keen

Several pieces by Mark Gurman in recent years tell us that in many cases, people Apple has hired on the purchase of their companies have subsequently jumped ship, as they did not find their happiness. If that is the case, that’s a problem that needs to be fixed; it suggests at least some of the assumptions the company has concerning how it works with its employees must be challenged, and new ways found to ensure acquired staffers actually want to stick around.

Apple has tried stock options to boost retention. That’s not enough. Money helps, but as Maslow says, agency and empowerment are more important. Steve Jobs understood this, saying during his last D: All Things Digital interview in 2010, “If you want to hire great people and have them stay working for you, [you] have to let them make a lot of decisions and you have to be run by ideas, not hierarchy…. The best ideas have to win — otherwise good people don’t want to stay.”

I’m not saying Apple has become hierarchical, though I look with suspicion at work-from-home mandates and opposition to employee unionization as hints that hierarchy exists in some parts of the company. What I am saying is that if the old M.O. isn’t working, and if the important new recruits the company needs to tackle genAI don’t want to stick around, then something’s got to change. And if that means a lot more collaboration and empowerment and a few internal changes in approach, that’s a small price to pay in contrast to the global opportunity to lead the AI-driven tech future on a planet seemingly owned by billionaires and technocrats.

Sometimes you got to play your hunches — how else are you going to find what you love?

You can follow me on social media! Join me on BlueSky, LinkedIn, and Mastodon.

Kategorie: Hacking & Security

AI, cybersecurity, and quantum computing shape UK’s new 10-year economic plan

23 Červen, 2025 - 17:43

Artificial intelligence, quantum computing and cybersecurity are “frontier technologies” the UK government plans to prioritize as part of its blueprint to overhaul the nation’s economy and industries over the next decade.

That’s according to its long-awaited industrial strategy policy paper and a separate plan going into more detail on digital and other technologies.

It would perhaps have been bigger news if the government hadn’t put AI, cybersecurity and quantum computing at the heart of its plans, given that it has already trailed this heavily in a sequence of reports, including January’s AI Opportunities Action Plan.

But the hope for the tech sector expressed in the paper, titled The UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy, is still ambitious, including that by 2035 the UK should aim to be one of the world’s top three R&D superpowers and home to a tech business worth a trillion dollars.

All that has to happen in a mere decade in a country unaccustomed to talking about its future more than one four-year election cycle ahead. It’s also interventionist in tone, an idea at odds with half a century of thinking in Britain which assumed technology should be left to its own devices.

AI and quantum computing will build the companies of the future. However, because this infrastructure will be vulnerable to disruption, it will need cybersecurity innovation to ensure its operation.

“We will enable new sectors to establish themselves e.g., our rapidly growing AI sector. […] Driving investment into our internationally renowned cybersecurity sector and supporting cutting-edge innovation to address the challenges that prevent widespread technology adoption,” the government wrote in the the Digital Technologies Sector Plan.

With a combined value of £1 trillion ($1.4 trillion) the UK’s tech sector was currently the world’s third most valuable behind only the US and China, it calculated.

The Plan’s focus on AI in particular sets out ambitious uptake goals. As soon as 2030, the UK should have several AI growth zones, with 7.5 million people upskilled to use the technology while the country’s AI research capacity will grow twentyfold, the plan projects. By the same date, the CyberASAP accelerator program should be supporting 250 cybersecurity companies and 28 spinouts.

Big interventions

Some optimism is probably justified — the country is home to a good collection of AI expertise for example — but it wouldn’t be Britain if there weren’t doubts.

The first is that while the UK has a reasonable track record at creating AI, cybersecurity, and technology companies, its record of keeping them British is less positive. Two examples are Google getting its hands on AI specialist DeepMind at a bargain-basement price in 2014, and Softbank’s purchase of chip designer Arm two years later. Both are still based in the UK, but with their profits flowing elsewhere.

That’s not always an issue but, without a core of sovereign businesses, it’s debatable whether a country is really in charge of its technology ecosystem in the long run.

A second issue is the size of the government interventions necessary to fuel local technology businesses today from startup to unicorn and beyond. In a sector that thinks in the hundreds of billions, the UK Government’s budget, doled out in tens of millions in a variety of programs, remains more constrained.

There’s also doubt about whether the rest of the UK economy will be able to profit from AI developments.

“According to Cisco’s latest UK AI Readiness Index, only 10% of UK organisations are fully prepared to harness AI’s potential,” said Cico’s UK and Ireland chief executive, Sarah Walker.

Cisco collaborated with the development of the Government’s plan, but Walker pointed out that its success still depended on overcoming deeper workforce challenges:

“AI adoption and implementation is primarily a people challenge. From traditional IT roles to marketing and supply chain management, almost every job will require AI literacy in the very near future,” she said.

In some parts of the UK, this would be easier than in others. “We need to ensure up-skilling is addressed with equality, to avoid exacerbating economic gaps that already exist across demographics and regions.”

Kategorie: Hacking & Security

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