[German]Brief short note before the first patchday in 2024: Microsoft is carrying out hardening measures for Windows (clients and servers) over longer periods of time, where functions are secured via Windows Update on certain dates. Some of these hardening measures are also scheduled for 2024, with the final enforcement phase for the Active Directory (AD) permissions problem starting on December 15, 2023.
[German]Microsoft is working on new features for Windows 11 that will be rolled out as a feature drop update in spring 2024. This package, which has also been referred to as the Moments 5 update for Windows 11 23H2, is expected to be released on Patchday in April 2024. There is even speculation that it could be traded as 24H1 – but I personally think this is unlikely.
[German]With the August 2023 security update, Microsoft closed the Outlook spoofing vulnerability CVE 2023 36893. As a result, the desktop application was no longer able to display images in meeting elements. In addition, the meeting text has been read-only since this date if calendar items from other senders are used for Microsoft Outlook. Microsoft already addressed this problem in Outlook at the end of November 2023 and described and rolled out workarounds. In January 2024, the last Outlook 365 channels will receive the fix.
[German]Microsoft has released another security update for the Edge (Chromium) browser with version 120.0.2210.121 on January 5, 2024. It is a security update that is intended to close vulnerabilities. Thanks to the readers for pointing this out in the blog.
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[German]The Swedish Coop supermarket group has probably fallen victim to another cyberattack. I read a few days ago that the ransomware group Cactus, which has been operating since 2023, listed Coop as a victim on its Tor leak page. In the meantime, Coop has probably confirmed that ransomware has infected the stores in the Värmland region. In 2021, 800 Coop stores in Sweden stopped working because a cyberattack on a checkout operator had paralyzed them.
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[German]Microsoft plans to expand the test of the new Outlook app in the corporate environment in January 2024. The option to switch will be offered in the "semi-annual channel" of Microsoft Office 365. Administrators who do not wish to switch should react – also in view of the fact that the new Outlook app transfers login data to Microsoft servers and will also cause other issues.
Adobe has released an optional update to version 23.008.20458 for Adobe Acrobat (Reader) DC on January 4, 2024. It is a planned update for macOS and Windows, which is intended to fix various bugs. According to the release notes, it is a hotfix patch for Acrobat and Acrobat Reader that fixes some important bugs (via).
[German]I'll pick up on a topic that I came across in the comments here on the blog – but I don't know if it's just an isolated incident. Are there administrators who have noticed that since December 2023 print jobs that are transmitted via SMB, for example, are no longer processed? Or the clients suddenly no longer get a connection to the print server (LPD service) and an error 0x00000709 is reported when creating new connections.
[German]Google has released updates of the Google Chrome browser in the Stable Channel for Mac, Linux and Windows to version 120.0.6099.199/200 on January 3, 2023. Version 120.0.6099.199 for Mac and 120.0.6099.200 for Windows were released in the Extended Stable Channel. The Android app of the Chrome browser has also been updated. The updates contain security fixes. Here is an overview of these updates (thanks to the reader for the tip).
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[German]The new head of the Windows product group at Microsoft, Mikhail Parakhin, wanted to know from Windows 11 users at the end of the year what could be changed or improved in the user interface of the operating system. One of the suggestions was that users should be able to scroll through the list of apps under Start. Parakhin has now signaled that they want to work on this "feature". Could come with the feature dropout (Moments 5) update expected in February 2024. Oh yes, new Windows PCs are to get a "Copilot" button on the keyboard.
MVP:
2013 – 2016
WIMVP:
2017 – 2020
