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Smart App Control arrived in Windows 11 as a quiet, opinionated guardian: built to stop untrusted and potentially malicious apps before they run, it pairs cloud intelligence, code-signing checks, and machine learning to make near‑instant allow/deny decisions — but its design choices produce...

Microsoft will begin automatically installing the Microsoft 365 Copilot app on many Windows devices this fall, but the rollout is neither universal nor unstoppable — administrators and privacy-conscious users have documented methods to block installation and disable the feature, and Microsoft...

A routine security update intended to tighten Windows kernel defenses has instead opened a new attack vector: a reliably exploitable information‑disclosure bug tracked as CVE‑2025‑53136 that leaks kernel addresses on Windows 11 and Windows Server 2022 24H2 builds. The vulnerability—rooted in...

Microsoft’s security advisory confirms a use‑after‑free defect in the BitLocker stack that can be triggered by an authorized local user to escalate privileges on affected Windows systems — administrators must treat CVE‑2025‑54912 as an urgent patching priority and assume a high‑impact threat...

Microsoft’s Security Update Guide records CVE-2025-54104 as an elevation of privilege vulnerability in the Windows Defender Firewall Service caused by an “access of resource using incompatible type (‘type confusion’)” — in short, a type‑confusion bug in a privileged service that an authorized...

Microsoft has published an advisory for CVE-2025-54110, a Windows Kernel vulnerability caused by an integer overflow or wraparound that can be triggered by a locally authorized attacker to achieve elevation of privilege to SYSTEM on affected machines; administrators should treat this as a...

Check Point Research has uncovered an active, in-the-wild campaign by the group tracked as Silver Fox that weaponizes a Microsoft-signed—but functionally vulnerable—kernel driver (amsdk.sys / WatchDog Antimalware) to terminate protected security processes and deliver the ValleyRAT backdoor...

The arrival of an open-source AppLocker policy generator aimed at simplifying XML policy creation for Windows administrators deserves attention: AppLockerGen promises a lightweight, web-like interface to author, merge, inspect, and export AppLocker policies — but the tool’s appeal comes with...

Macrohard: Elon Musk’s ‘AI Software Company’ Sets Sights on Microsoft Dek On August 22, 2025, Elon Musk said he’s building “a purely AI software company called Macrohard” to take on Microsoft—framing it as tongue‑in‑cheek in name but “very real” in intent. Here’s what he actually announced, what...

When a vendor-side advisory and a CVE identifier don’t line up, the first — and most important — job for defenders and researchers is to stop, verify, and update the record. I tried to open the MSRC page you gave and could not find any public advisory, nor could I find any authoritative...

Microsoft’s August 2025 Intune update materially expands the platform’s security controls and enrollment ergonomics, delivering four headline features—granular App Control targeting, automatic patching during device setup, near‑real‑time Apple software update visibility via Declarative Device...

A critical local privilege‑escalation flaw has been disclosed in Rockwell Automation’s FactoryTalk ViewPoint (versions 14.00 and prior) that allows an attacker with local access to escalate to SYSTEM by abusing Windows MSI repair behavior — the issue is tracked as CVE‑2025‑7973 and has been...

A high-severity privilege-escalation flaw has been disclosed in Rockwell Automation’s FactoryTalk ViewPoint that allows a local attacker to escalate to SYSTEM privileges by abusing Windows MSI repair behavior; the issue (CVE-2025-7973) carries a CVSS v4 base score of 8.5 and affects FactoryTalk...

Siemens ProductCERT has confirmed a widespread DLL-hijacking flaw in the Siemens Web Installer used by its Online Software Delivery (OSD) mechanism — tracked as CVE‑2025‑30033 — that can allow arbitrary code execution during installation, carries a CVSS v4 base score of 8.5, and affects dozens...

Windows 11’s security-first architecture is arriving at a critical moment for colleges and universities, delivering a broad set of built-in protections—passwordless sign-on, hardware-based isolation, and Microsoft Defender tooling—that aim to reduce ransomware risk and ease management burdens...

Microsoft’s Security Update Guide lists CVE-2025-53736 as a Microsoft Word information-disclosure vulnerability caused by a buffer over-read in Word that can allow an unauthorized local actor to read memory and disclose sensitive information on a victim machine; administrators are strongly...

Microsoft’s Security Update Guide entry for CVE-2025-53718 describes a use‑after‑free (UAF) flaw in the Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock (AFD.sys) that can be triggered by a locally authorized user to obtain elevated privileges on affected Windows hosts — a kernel‑level...

A use‑after‑free vulnerability in the Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock (AFD.sys), tracked as CVE-2025-53137, can be abused by an authorized local user to escalate privileges to SYSTEM on affected Windows hosts — a high‑impact kernel vulnerability that follows a string of similar AFD...

Title: CVE‑2025‑50173 — Windows Installer “Weak Authentication” Elevation‑of‑Privilege: What admins need to know and do now Summary Microsoft lists CVE‑2025‑50173 as an elevation‑of‑privilege vulnerability in Windows Installer. The vendor description summarizes the issue as “weak authentication...

Note: I checked the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) entry you linked and reviewed public vulnerability feeds while preparing this article. The MSRC page for CVE-2025-53759 is the primary source for the vulnerability statement; I also cross‑checked public advisories and CISA summaries...