Legacy authentication protocols rarely make the news for good reasons, and yet here we are—NTLM is back in the headlines, but not for a nostalgia tour. Instead, it’s at the center of a renewed wave of cyber-attacks, reminding enterprise IT pros (and anyone reckless enough to run a Windows environment in 2024) that sometimes the past doesn’t just haunt you: it carves out a cubicle next to yours. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s Copilot Vision is rolling out for Edge users in the United States, free for now, but with a side of privacy questions that will get the tinfoil hats humming. And, as a garnish, Windows 11 is waltzing its way onto corporate machines that Intune admins were quite certain should be immune. It’s another wild week in IT—let’s unpack this tangled set of threads.
Anyone who thought that NTLM (NT LAN Manager) had faded quietly into the background with dial-up internet and floppy disks is in for a rude awakening. Despite being a relic of the Windows 95 era, NTLM authentication still lurks in the bowels of too many Active Directory domains. Some would say it’s the Dorian Gray portrait of the IT world: preserved mainly because no one dare look at it too closely, or worse—try to remove it.
And yet, hackers certainly haven’t forgotten about NTLM. In fact, it remains an enduring weak link. Why? Because it was designed before modern threat landscapes were even on the horizon, and its cryptographic flaws are well-documented. Pass-the-Hash attacks, NTLM relay, credential stuffing—pick your poison. The techniques are so mature they probably qualify for a pension.
Attackers are gleefully exploiting NTLM wherever they find it, often using it as a pivot point for broader attacks. An attacker who gets their hands on NTLM hashes can, depending on implementation, reuse those credentials elsewhere—offering a foothold to dig deeper into a network. This is not a theoretical risk; it's being actively used, as recent IT incidents have demonstrated. Microsoft, for all its encouragement to migrate to Kerberos and modern authentication, can’t simply flip a switch globally—and organizations that still rely on legacy apps or integrations can find themselves trapped by their own technical debt.
For IT pros reading this, the message is clear: if you haven’t audited your NTLM usage lately, now’s the time. Microsoft offers resources and tools to detect NTLM authentication in your environment, and mitigation—even within complex legacy networks—is possible. But ignoring it? That’s an invitation for trouble, RSVP’d by ransomware crews worldwide.
Copilot Vision is designed to serve as an “AI companion” while you browse. Ask it to summarize articles, suggest content, automate repetitive web tasks, or even provide recommendations mid-scroll. The idea is to integrate conversational AI into the very fabric of your online experience—think less Clippy and more personal, invisible research assistant.
Of course, privacy hawks are rightly taking a closer look at what Copilot Vision is actually watching. It has access to your browsing sessions, potentially collecting data to improve its smarts or, more cynically, to target advertising and push Microsoft’s larger ecosystem. Microsoft, for its part, says user privacy is paramount and data is managed in accordance with its policies. But as with all things “free,” it’s always good to ponder the fine print. After all, if you’re not paying for the product, you might just be the product.
For enterprises, this brings up new governance headaches. Should Copilot Vision be enabled by default? Who controls the data? How do you ensure sensitive corporate browsing isn’t being ingested by AI systems? These are policy debates that will find their way into IT steering committee meetings, and, no doubt, vendor calls with Microsoft reps packing slides.
In practical terms, Copilot Vision shows off Microsoft’s ambition to become indispensable in the day-to-day work of users—part Copilot, part watchful digital butler. The real question isn't how useful it will be, but whether people are willing to trust their browser with yet another layer of data harvesting, no matter how cleverly it’s wrapped in AI.
Intune, Microsoft's cloud-based endpoint management system, gives organizations the ability to control updates, including deferring or outright blocking major OS upgrades. But evidently, certain scenarios (perhaps a bug, perhaps an “overly helpful” Windows Update process) have resulted in Windows 11 being offered, and in some cases installed, on devices that IT believed were safe.
The consequences aren’t just cosmetic. Compatibility with line-of-business applications, custom drivers, and even compliance requirements can be upended by an unexpected OS jump. For now, Microsoft is investigating and, as always, recommends diligent use of established channels to report issues and monitor your update rings.
This is a classic example of the sometimes-adversarial relationship between IT and the vendors they depend on. Even with centralized management, cloud-based policy enforcement, and finely-tuned controls, complexity and scale mean things can (and do) slip through. For IT folks, it’s another reminder that “set it and forget it” isn’t a winning strategy—policy enforcement is a game of inches and obsession.
The hard truth is, some applications were written in an age when NTLM was the only game in town. ERP systems from the early 2000s, oddball file servers, even off-the-shelf packages that never made the leap to modern authentication—all contribute to the inertia. Rip-and-replace isn’t often practical, so teams are faced with the thankless task of limiting exposure, segmenting networks, and praying that next year’s budget includes a line item for some actual modernization.
Microsoft, to its credit, has provided migration guides, group policies to restrict NTLM, and audit tools to uncover where it's still in use. But, as with so much in IT, the hardest part isn't the technology—it’s the organizational will. Migration projects get delayed, business units resist change, and security obligations quietly play second fiddle to “just keep it working.” The result: persistent, well-known vulnerabilities hiding in plain sight.
What’s the fix? Some experts advocate for zero-tolerance policies—disable NTLM network-wide and let the chips fall where they may. Others suggest a phased crawl, mapping out dependencies and prioritizing high-risk segments. One thing is certain: as long as NTLM lingers, attackers will keep hunting it.
But this ambition runs headlong into privacy concerns. When an AI “sees” what you’re browsing, what exactly does it do with that information? Microsoft swears by its privacy-by-design approach, with opt-outs and clear disclosures, but history has taught users to be skeptical. At stake is the distinction between a genuinely helpful agent and a silent data vacuum.
Organizations deploying Copilot Vision must consider not just compliance (GDPR, CCPA, internal regs) but the culture around privacy and trust. Will employees accept a digital assistant that’s always “watching?” Does it raise red flags with auditors or legal teams? And, perhaps most importantly, how visible are those opt-outs for less technical users?
What’s clear is that browser-based AI is inevitably going to become more common. Microsoft’s move to offer Copilot Vision for free is as much about market positioning as it is about utility. The value to the company isn’t measured in dollars for the product itself—it’s the trove of data and the deepening relationship with users. As always with tech evolution, the devil isn’t in the terms of service—it’s in whether people actually read them.
Yet, as this week’s rogue Windows 11 upgrades prove, even the most careful policy can falter in the trenches. Maybe it’s a weird edge case, maybe it’s human error, maybe it’s software in an existential crisis. The outcome is the same: end-users suddenly facing the unfamiliar bloom of Windows 11, while helpdesk tickets pile up.
The lesson for IT isn’t to abandon hope, but to double down on vigilance. Monitoring, alerting, and testing are as critical as ever. Peer reviews of policy settings, regular log reviews, and a healthy degree of paranoia must be standard issue. And, as always, clear communication with both executives and end-users can soften the inevitable disruptions when tech culture collides with reality.
Copilot Vision joins a quickly growing list of AI-in-browser offerings, all vying to be the indispensable tool you didn’t know you couldn’t live without. Sophisticated natural language interfaces, on-the-fly summarization, and seamless task automation aren’t window dressing—they’re the opening volley in the next gen productivity war.
But will users embrace an AI that’s—but let’s not sugarcoat it—watching everything they do online? Early indications suggest a split personality in the crowd: power users see opportunity, privacy devotees see a third rail. Vendors are betting that features will win over skepticism, but history and recent regulatory dust-ups suggest it won’t be a smooth ride.
Hybrid environments accelerate complexity, introducing cloud endpoints, remote workers, and bring-your-own-everything. Legacy infrastructure doesn’t magically disappear when you move to Azure or M365. Instead, old protocols like NTLM get new attack surfaces, and every change—be it a feature or a policy—throws another variable into the mix.
For those paid to protect enterprise data, the message is both hopeful and humbling. On one hand, new tools and AI capabilities have never been more powerful. On the other, the gap between progress and implementation yawns wide. The winners in this era won’t be the organizations with the shiniest tech stack, but those with the willpower (and sometimes the budget) to rip out the old roots while nurturing the new.
Start with a deep dive audit of all legacy protocols, especially NTLM. If it’s present (and it almost certainly is somewhere), map out dependencies and get real about the risks. Move business units forward, project by project, and use every major breach headline as the justification you need.
On the browser front, revisit your governance policies for AI helpers. Decide what’s allowed, what’s blocked, and how you’ll inform staff. Make opt-outs easy. Trust, once lost, is devilishly hard to regain.
For update management, take a page from disaster response plans: trust, but verify. Test policies in small batches. Monitor logs. Stay plugged into Microsoft’s release notes. And keep a stash of stress balls handy—the IT gods are fickle.
So yes, NTLM bites back, Copilot Vision is watching, and Windows updates remain an unpredictable force of nature. But this is exactly what makes IT so much fun (or so maddening, depending on your supply of caffeine and optimism).
In the end, it isn’t about whether technology is moving too fast, or not fast enough. It’s about how judiciously we keep up, how transparently we treat our users, and how ruthlessly we hunt down the ghosts of protocols past. Welcome to another week in IT—same as it ever was, only with more AI.
Source: Petri IT Knowledgebase NTLM Bites Back and Copilot Vision Is Watching You - Petri IT Knowledgebase
NTLM: Still Bitten, Not Gone
Anyone who thought that NTLM (NT LAN Manager) had faded quietly into the background with dial-up internet and floppy disks is in for a rude awakening. Despite being a relic of the Windows 95 era, NTLM authentication still lurks in the bowels of too many Active Directory domains. Some would say it’s the Dorian Gray portrait of the IT world: preserved mainly because no one dare look at it too closely, or worse—try to remove it.And yet, hackers certainly haven’t forgotten about NTLM. In fact, it remains an enduring weak link. Why? Because it was designed before modern threat landscapes were even on the horizon, and its cryptographic flaws are well-documented. Pass-the-Hash attacks, NTLM relay, credential stuffing—pick your poison. The techniques are so mature they probably qualify for a pension.
Attackers are gleefully exploiting NTLM wherever they find it, often using it as a pivot point for broader attacks. An attacker who gets their hands on NTLM hashes can, depending on implementation, reuse those credentials elsewhere—offering a foothold to dig deeper into a network. This is not a theoretical risk; it's being actively used, as recent IT incidents have demonstrated. Microsoft, for all its encouragement to migrate to Kerberos and modern authentication, can’t simply flip a switch globally—and organizations that still rely on legacy apps or integrations can find themselves trapped by their own technical debt.
For IT pros reading this, the message is clear: if you haven’t audited your NTLM usage lately, now’s the time. Microsoft offers resources and tools to detect NTLM authentication in your environment, and mitigation—even within complex legacy networks—is possible. But ignoring it? That’s an invitation for trouble, RSVP’d by ransomware crews worldwide.
Copilot Vision: Your New Browser Sidekick… or Snoop?
If you’ve used Microsoft Edge lately, you may have noticed a new AI-powered feature: Copilot Vision. For U.S. users, it’s being rolled out for free, which is perhaps the most surprising part—Microsoft giving anything away without a licensing upsell? Pinch yourself, but keep one eye open.Copilot Vision is designed to serve as an “AI companion” while you browse. Ask it to summarize articles, suggest content, automate repetitive web tasks, or even provide recommendations mid-scroll. The idea is to integrate conversational AI into the very fabric of your online experience—think less Clippy and more personal, invisible research assistant.
Of course, privacy hawks are rightly taking a closer look at what Copilot Vision is actually watching. It has access to your browsing sessions, potentially collecting data to improve its smarts or, more cynically, to target advertising and push Microsoft’s larger ecosystem. Microsoft, for its part, says user privacy is paramount and data is managed in accordance with its policies. But as with all things “free,” it’s always good to ponder the fine print. After all, if you’re not paying for the product, you might just be the product.
For enterprises, this brings up new governance headaches. Should Copilot Vision be enabled by default? Who controls the data? How do you ensure sensitive corporate browsing isn’t being ingested by AI systems? These are policy debates that will find their way into IT steering committee meetings, and, no doubt, vendor calls with Microsoft reps packing slides.
In practical terms, Copilot Vision shows off Microsoft’s ambition to become indispensable in the day-to-day work of users—part Copilot, part watchful digital butler. The real question isn't how useful it will be, but whether people are willing to trust their browser with yet another layer of data harvesting, no matter how cleverly it’s wrapped in AI.
The Phantom Windows 11 Upgrade
It’s every IT admin's worst nightmare: you set policies in Intune to block a Windows upgrade, only to discover that your perfectly-tuned environment has other ideas. That's exactly what’s transpired for some organizations this week—Windows 11 has found its way onto corporate machines, even in places where explicit policies were supposed to keep it at bay.Intune, Microsoft's cloud-based endpoint management system, gives organizations the ability to control updates, including deferring or outright blocking major OS upgrades. But evidently, certain scenarios (perhaps a bug, perhaps an “overly helpful” Windows Update process) have resulted in Windows 11 being offered, and in some cases installed, on devices that IT believed were safe.
The consequences aren’t just cosmetic. Compatibility with line-of-business applications, custom drivers, and even compliance requirements can be upended by an unexpected OS jump. For now, Microsoft is investigating and, as always, recommends diligent use of established channels to report issues and monitor your update rings.
This is a classic example of the sometimes-adversarial relationship between IT and the vendors they depend on. Even with centralized management, cloud-based policy enforcement, and finely-tuned controls, complexity and scale mean things can (and do) slip through. For IT folks, it’s another reminder that “set it and forget it” isn’t a winning strategy—policy enforcement is a game of inches and obsession.
Why NTLM Still Haunts the Enterprise
NTLM’s stubborn persistence in corporate environments is a tale of technical debt, legacy software, and the quiet dread that comes with untangling decades-old integrations. Anyone who’s managed enterprise IT knows the scenario: you audit your authentication logs, expecting all-green Kerberos events, only to see NTLM croaking out a survival signal like a Windows XP box lurking in the server closet.The hard truth is, some applications were written in an age when NTLM was the only game in town. ERP systems from the early 2000s, oddball file servers, even off-the-shelf packages that never made the leap to modern authentication—all contribute to the inertia. Rip-and-replace isn’t often practical, so teams are faced with the thankless task of limiting exposure, segmenting networks, and praying that next year’s budget includes a line item for some actual modernization.
Microsoft, to its credit, has provided migration guides, group policies to restrict NTLM, and audit tools to uncover where it's still in use. But, as with so much in IT, the hardest part isn't the technology—it’s the organizational will. Migration projects get delayed, business units resist change, and security obligations quietly play second fiddle to “just keep it working.” The result: persistent, well-known vulnerabilities hiding in plain sight.
What’s the fix? Some experts advocate for zero-tolerance policies—disable NTLM network-wide and let the chips fall where they may. Others suggest a phased crawl, mapping out dependencies and prioritizing high-risk segments. One thing is certain: as long as NTLM lingers, attackers will keep hunting it.
Copilot Vision and the Changing Nature of Privacy
AI assistants like Copilot Vision are part of a broader shift in how we interface with the web. Where browser add-ons and toolbars once reigned (remember them?), now it’s AI overlays, context-aware helpers, and automated workflows. The promise is seductive: less time searching or reading, more time “being productive.”But this ambition runs headlong into privacy concerns. When an AI “sees” what you’re browsing, what exactly does it do with that information? Microsoft swears by its privacy-by-design approach, with opt-outs and clear disclosures, but history has taught users to be skeptical. At stake is the distinction between a genuinely helpful agent and a silent data vacuum.
Organizations deploying Copilot Vision must consider not just compliance (GDPR, CCPA, internal regs) but the culture around privacy and trust. Will employees accept a digital assistant that’s always “watching?” Does it raise red flags with auditors or legal teams? And, perhaps most importantly, how visible are those opt-outs for less technical users?
What’s clear is that browser-based AI is inevitably going to become more common. Microsoft’s move to offer Copilot Vision for free is as much about market positioning as it is about utility. The value to the company isn’t measured in dollars for the product itself—it’s the trove of data and the deepening relationship with users. As always with tech evolution, the devil isn’t in the terms of service—it’s in whether people actually read them.
Windows Update Policies: Perfection, or Perpetual Audit?
Microsoft’s Intune and Windows Update rings promise IT admins a sense of control—an ability to pause or block updates, manage the rollout of features, and keep a tight rein on what lands on corporate desktops. And, to be fair, these tools are robust compared to the wild-west patch management days of yore.Yet, as this week’s rogue Windows 11 upgrades prove, even the most careful policy can falter in the trenches. Maybe it’s a weird edge case, maybe it’s human error, maybe it’s software in an existential crisis. The outcome is the same: end-users suddenly facing the unfamiliar bloom of Windows 11, while helpdesk tickets pile up.
The lesson for IT isn’t to abandon hope, but to double down on vigilance. Monitoring, alerting, and testing are as critical as ever. Peer reviews of policy settings, regular log reviews, and a healthy degree of paranoia must be standard issue. And, as always, clear communication with both executives and end-users can soften the inevitable disruptions when tech culture collides with reality.
The Broader AI Browser Arms Race
If Microsoft is setting its sights on turning your browser into an AI-infused command center, you can be certain Google and others are working late nights to respond. The browser, once seen as a humble gateway to the web, is the new battleground in corporate and consumer tech.Copilot Vision joins a quickly growing list of AI-in-browser offerings, all vying to be the indispensable tool you didn’t know you couldn’t live without. Sophisticated natural language interfaces, on-the-fly summarization, and seamless task automation aren’t window dressing—they’re the opening volley in the next gen productivity war.
But will users embrace an AI that’s—but let’s not sugarcoat it—watching everything they do online? Early indications suggest a split personality in the crowd: power users see opportunity, privacy devotees see a third rail. Vendors are betting that features will win over skepticism, but history and recent regulatory dust-ups suggest it won’t be a smooth ride.
Security in the Age of Hybrid Clouds and Old Habits
The NTLM fiasco, Copilot Vision’s debut, and the unpredictable march of Windows 11 updates all share a common thread: the clash between rapid technological evolution and the ancient habits that die hard in IT.Hybrid environments accelerate complexity, introducing cloud endpoints, remote workers, and bring-your-own-everything. Legacy infrastructure doesn’t magically disappear when you move to Azure or M365. Instead, old protocols like NTLM get new attack surfaces, and every change—be it a feature or a policy—throws another variable into the mix.
For those paid to protect enterprise data, the message is both hopeful and humbling. On one hand, new tools and AI capabilities have never been more powerful. On the other, the gap between progress and implementation yawns wide. The winners in this era won’t be the organizations with the shiniest tech stack, but those with the willpower (and sometimes the budget) to rip out the old roots while nurturing the new.
Recommendations for the Battle-Weary IT Department
If this week’s news has you eyeing a change in career to something a little less stressful (dog-walking, perhaps?), take heart. The challenges are real, but so are the remedies—at least for those willing to grease the wheels of change.Start with a deep dive audit of all legacy protocols, especially NTLM. If it’s present (and it almost certainly is somewhere), map out dependencies and get real about the risks. Move business units forward, project by project, and use every major breach headline as the justification you need.
On the browser front, revisit your governance policies for AI helpers. Decide what’s allowed, what’s blocked, and how you’ll inform staff. Make opt-outs easy. Trust, once lost, is devilishly hard to regain.
For update management, take a page from disaster response plans: trust, but verify. Test policies in small batches. Monitor logs. Stay plugged into Microsoft’s release notes. And keep a stash of stress balls handy—the IT gods are fickle.
The Road Ahead: Progress, with a Side of Paranoia
No one ever said managing modern IT environments would be boring. Even as Microsoft and others push the boundaries with browser AI, and as ancient protocols like NTLM continue to linger in the shadows, the future belongs to those who can move fast without tripping over the past.So yes, NTLM bites back, Copilot Vision is watching, and Windows updates remain an unpredictable force of nature. But this is exactly what makes IT so much fun (or so maddening, depending on your supply of caffeine and optimism).
In the end, it isn’t about whether technology is moving too fast, or not fast enough. It’s about how judiciously we keep up, how transparently we treat our users, and how ruthlessly we hunt down the ghosts of protocols past. Welcome to another week in IT—same as it ever was, only with more AI.
Source: Petri IT Knowledgebase NTLM Bites Back and Copilot Vision Is Watching You - Petri IT Knowledgebase
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