All news with #microsoft tag

🔬 Microsoft presents an adaptive, agentic approach to R&D with Microsoft Discovery and CLIO, demonstrating strong benchmark performance across health, physical sciences, and life sciences. The platform supports iterative hypothesis generation, evidence-backed validation, and multi-path reasoning while integrating with existing tools and governance. This approach aims to accelerate research outcomes without replacing expert judgment.

🔍 Microsoft researchers revealed a large-scale phishing campaign that used ASCII smuggling by inserting invisible Unicode tag characters into finance-related lure words to evade email filters. The operation peaked at about 2.37 million daily messages in late February and remained active, though diminished, through May 2026. Messages relied on domains promoting funding and loans and were sent via infrastructure tied to the ActiveCampaign platform. Microsoft recommends normalizing or stripping tag-block and other invisible code points before applying keyword or AI-based detection.

🛠️ Microsoft is investigating a known issue that delays or prevents some Windows users from opening the Microsoft Teams desktop client, with initial loads taking up to two minutes or failing to load. The company recommends using Teams on the web or the mobile app as temporary workarounds while it analyzes logs and telemetry to identify root causes. Separately, Microsoft is also probing a Mac-specific problem that prevents users from joining calls and meetings and has revised its initial assessment of the cause. These incidents follow prior Teams-related issues and broader Microsoft service disruptions that the company continues to remediate.

📧 Microsoft is investigating an Exchange Online outage (EX1467029) that began at 02:19 AM EDT and is causing intermittent "Server busy" errors for users sending to and receiving from external domains. The company noted anti-spam protections may be aggravating delays for a subset of accounts and said it is analysing service telemetry to identify the root cause. No timeline for full remediation or affected regions and user counts have been provided.

🚀 GPT-6 Astra is now generally available to Microsoft Foundry customers, positioned to move enterprise AI from chat experiences to agentic work that reasons, plans, and executes across applications and systems. Foundry integrates identity, networking, governance, and monitoring to help organizations deploy Astra with scoped credentials, human checkpoints, and activity records. Deployment options include Standard and Provisioned Throughput across Global and US Data Zone geographies, with pricing tiers for short and long contexts.

🐭 Microsoft confirmed that a bug introduced by the KB5120998 August 27, 2026 preview update reverts mouse personalization settings on some Windows 11 devices. The issue was found to affect only non‑English installations, where necessary code components fail to load and default cursor settings are applied. KB5120998 is an optional preview update that can install automatically if users opted to receive updates as soon as available. Microsoft has acknowledged related mouse and desktop settings issues and continues to investigate and address them.

🛠️ Microsoft confirmed that installing the KB5120998 August 27, 2026 preview update can cause desktop settings to fail to load on some Windows 11 devices. Affected systems running Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2 may see wallpapers revert to a solid black background and experience lost themes, slideshow, or contrast settings. The issue also prevents users from restoring their custom settings, and a related mouse settings regression was acknowledged. KB5120998 is an optional, non-security preview update that may install automatically if users enabled immediate update delivery.

🔒 Microsoft warns that attackers are compromising enterprises via counterfeit download sites imitating vendors like Microsoft Edge, Kaspersky, and Razer, delivering trojanized installers that establish persistence and weaken security. The campaign, tied to the public Silver Fox/Yinhu activity, uses look-alike domains and server-generated payloads whose hashes change on each download to evade file-based detection. Once executed, installers abuse legitimate Windows components and scheduled tasks to persist, modify Defender settings, and stage further payloads.

🔧 Microsoft is addressing a known bug causing Microsoft Teams and the new Outlook to crash or fail to launch on ARM-based Windows devices after August 2026 updates. The issue mainly affects Surface Pro 11 and Surface Laptop 7 running Windows 11 24H2 or later, particularly on new or freshly imaged PCs without Microsoft Store updates. As a temporary workaround, Microsoft advises installing the Auto Super Resolution Package (v1.0.19.0+) via Microsoft Store. A permanent fix will be delivered in a future Windows update.

🛡️ Microsoft Defender Experts are tracking an active campaign that uses counterfeit software-download sites impersonating trusted vendors to distribute malicious installers. The campaign targets users seeking popular software and has caused compromises across multiple industries, with a concentration on China-based operations and Chinese-speaking users. The malicious installers establish persistence, evade defenses, and communicate with attacker infrastructure; Microsoft disrupted activity and recommends enabling protections such as SmartScreen, network protection, tamper protection, and Microsoft Defender XDR.

🛡️ The White House has launched Project Watershed 250, a pilot program in Texas to provide water and wastewater utilities with federal and private-sector cybersecurity resources at no cost. Announced jointly by Governor Greg Abbott and National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross, the six-month initiative will deploy expertise from vendors including Microsoft, Google, AWS, Cloudflare, Palo Alto Networks, Forescout and Dragos. Supported by Texas Cyber Command, the pilot aims to identify vulnerabilities and strengthen defenses for rural and urban water providers amid growing OT-targeted threats tied to nation-state actors.

🔒 Tracked as CVE-2026-62911, a high-severity authentication bypass in Microsoft Exchange Server 2016, 2019, and SE allows attackers with basic privileges to hijack all user mailboxes via low-complexity, user-interaction attacks. Microsoft patched the flaw in August 2026 Patch Tuesday, but Shadowserver found 21,899 exposed IPs still unpatched, predominantly in the US and Germany. Authorities including NCSC-NL and Germany's BSI warn that exploit code is public and urge immediate updates or isolation of affected servers, especially as ESU updates for older Exchange versions end in October 2026.

🛡️ Microsoft acknowledged a bug causing Windows to display “Microsoft Defender Antivirus is turned off” notifications even though the product is functioning correctly. The vendor says it will issue a fix in a future Defender update and listed affected Windows client and server versions spanning recent and legacy releases. Security experts warn the advisory may train users and SOCs to ignore critical alerts, enabling attacker tradecraft and increasing risk.

🛠️ Microsoft is investigating a widespread service issue causing authentication errors and email delays or failures for Exchange Online customers. The incident (EX1464935) was first acknowledged at 5:30 PM UTC after a surge of user reports; Downdetector indicates tens of thousands affected. Reported symptoms include delayed or failed message delivery, authentication errors, administration access issues, and intermittent mailbox operation failures. Microsoft says it has isolated a common failure pattern tied to authentication and protocol connectivity and is analyzing telemetry to determine remediation and scope.

🛡️ A coalition led by OpenAI warns AI will rapidly accelerate cyberattacks, shrinking the window to remediate long-standing weaknesses. The open letter, backed by over 100 tech and security firms including Microsoft, Google, and AWS, urged leaders to prioritize high-risk fixes and provide defenders with cyber-capable AI. The group emphasizes execution of existing security practices and coordinated industry-government action.

🐭 Microsoft confirmed that the KB5120998 August 2026 non-security preview update can change or reset mouse cursor personalization on affected Windows 11 systems. Reports indicate high‑DPI cursors may be replaced with larger white cursors and custom animations revert to defaults, with users unable to restore previous settings. Microsoft is investigating and asks affected customers to report the issue via the Feedback Hub.

🛡️ Microsoft has asked customers to ignore false notifications indicating "Microsoft Defender Antivirus is turned off" after recent Defender updates. The issue, affecting all supported Windows client and server versions including Windows 11 26H1 and Windows Server 2025, causes alerts to appear in the Windows Security app despite the antivirus functioning normally. Microsoft confirmed it is investigating and plans to roll out a fix in a future Defender update.

🔒 A coalition of over 100 tech and cybersecurity companies, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Microsoft, has warned that there is a “narrowing window” to act before AI-enabled cyber-attacks escalate and threaten critical public services. The open letter, published on August 27, urges collective action to give defenders AI tools and improve security standards, sharing knowledge and ensuring access to defensive capabilities for critical infrastructure operators.

🛈 Microsoft released the KB5120998 preview cumulative update for Windows 11 25H2 and 24H2, bringing 35 non-security changes and improvements to the Start menu, taskbar, search, and system behaviors. This optional update lets administrators test bug fixes and new features before they're broadly deployed in the next Patch Tuesday release. It also begins rolling out an administrator protection feature that supplies just-in-time privileges and profile separation, disabled by default and configurable via Intune or Group Policy.

🛡️ This update details new Microsoft Security capabilities for August 2026, focusing on AI agent visibility, broader threat coverage, and improved management across environments. Highlights include expanded Microsoft Defender Experts MDR coverage for third-party data sources, Microsoft Entra Tenant Governance for multi-tenant visibility, and Windows device management improvements. Other updates boost data protection with increased auto-labeling throughput in Microsoft Purview and introduce Secure Now guidance for agentic containment.