Windows 11 and Windows Server 2022 users whose devices run on some of the newer processors are at risk of losing their data, Microsoft warned.
"Windows devices that support the latest Advanced Vector Encryption Standard (AES) instruction set (VAES) may be susceptible to data corruption (opens in a new tab)," the company said in its warning.
Devices affected by this issue have been reported to use AES-XTS or AES-GCM block cipher modes. Microsoft did not specify how the flaw manifests itself and how users would know if they were affected. He said he fixed the problem with the hotfixes he released on May 24 and June 14.
Alternative solutions
The patches come with a pretty big warning, with some reports claiming that they will slow down endpoints significantly, with AES-based operations up to twice as slow as before the patch was applied.
Apparently, BitLocker, Transport Layer Security (TLS) (especially load balancers), and disk performance (for businesses, mainly) are the most affected.
"We've added new code paths to the Windows 11 (original release) and Windows Server 2022 versions of SymCrypt to take advantage of the VAES (vectorized AES) instructions," Microsoft said. "SymCrypt is the core cryptographic library of Windows. These instructions act on AVX (Advanced Vector Extensions) registers for hardware with the latest supported processors."
If the performance issue is severely affecting your endpoints, Microsoft recommends installing the June 23 preview update (Windows 11, Windows Server 2022) or the July 12 security update (Windows 11, Windows Server 2022), either which should restore the original performance metrics. .
"If this affects you, we recommend that you install the May 24, 2022 Preview or June 14, 2022 Security Release as soon as possible to prevent further damage," Microsoft concluded. "Performance will be restored after installing the June 23, 2022 Preview or July 12, 2022 Security Release."
Data loss, whether due to disaster or theft, is a huge challenge for organizations these days, so experts recommend making sure all data is backed up (opened in a new tab) and that backups are tested regularly.
Via: BleepingComputer (Opens in a new tab)