1 844.742.7448

Email Us

Remote Support

Contact

Posts tagged "months"

  1. Home
  2. Posts tagged months

Windows 11 SSD slowdown bug has been hanging around for months – and people are fed up
  • No Comments

Windows 11 continues to have a problem for some users whereby their SSD speeds are being seriously slowed down, and it’s still not clear what Microsoft might be doing about this issue.

Windows Latest highlights the ongoing stream of reports about SSD slowdowns which first began back in March 2023 (with update KB5023778).

Since then, after every cumulative update for Windows 11, including the update for June, there have been folks complaining about performance being hampered with even the best SSDs.

That also includes the June preview (optional) update, which will become the July update a week tomorrow (July 11), and so is very likely to carry the problem.

Windows Latest points to a whole string of complaints on Reddit and Microsoft’s Feedback Hub for Windows 11 (as well as the tech site’s own forums).

Here’s one example of an affected user on Reddit: “Yes, I only encountered this issue after I installed the Moment 2 update [March update] before Moment 2 everything was fast and responsive. To this day none of the patches fixed the bug for me. Microsoft should really fix game-breaking bugs before working on releasing new features.”

With the latest preview update for June (that’ll become July’s update, as mentioned), another complaint runs like this: “Oh, so there actually is a storage bug going on? My NVME SSD has around 1200 MB/s sequential write speed right now, it should be up to 4400 MB/S. Read speeds are normal.”

Analysis: Let’s have some communication here, Microsoft

We have to agree with the Windows Latest report, as we’ve definitely noticed that with the notes for every patch release on Reddit, there’s an SSD complaint in there somewhere. Either someone new hit by the issue, or people asking if the slowdown gremlin has been fixed for other folks, as it hasn’t for them. Invariably, the answer is no, it hasn’t.

So, what’s Microsoft doing about this? We’ve not seen any official replies on those mentioned threads, and according to Windows Latest, Microsoft has confirmed it has received these bug reports, but hasn’t said anything further. That’s far from ideal, of course, even if this isn’t a hugely widespread problem (we’re not entirely sure of the scale of the numbers of those affected, but there are certainly a fair few folks out there complaining).

Needless to say, those in that particular boat are none too pleased, and are bemoaning Microsoft working on new features – and lauding the likes of DirectStorage for speeding up PC games and SSD loading speeds – while leaving a flaw like this apparently unaddressed over a period of months now.

Microsoft can surely do better, if not in delivering a fix for what seems to be a pretty clear problem at this point, then at least in letting us all know what’s going on. As of right now we don’t even know if this is on any priority lists for being investigated, let alone resolved.

If we had to guess, the drive slowdown problem may be tied to multiple issues – which is perhaps why new folks seemingly keep finding themselves affected down the line – and this is a messy one for Microsoft to untangle. It’d be nice to get an update on exactly what’s going on to tackle this, though, and hopefully we’ll see that soon enough.

Meanwhile, your only recourse if affected is to uninstall the update that caused the SSD to hit performance issues. But of course, that leaves you without the latest security fixes, which could be an even bigger problem ultimately, if you get unlucky.

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

Read More

Elon Musk’s Twitter: a timeline of his six months as CEO
  • No Comments

Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you've likely heard plenty about Elon Musk's Twitter takeover. In just over six months as CEO, Musk has tossed the platform into turmoil, but the season of change has yet to finish a-changing.

Musk has now officially stated his intent to step down as CEO, and will be handing the reins to NBCUniversal Executive Linda Yaccarino in late June. 

So, what will Yaccarino inherit when she steps up to the plate? Some would say a golden chalice whereas others would see a poisoned one, given the many controversial changes the platform has seen since it came under Musk's ownership. 

In the ongoing saga of Twitter 2.0, there has been a lot of news to parse through. To help, we've summarized the major milestones and changes the billionaire tech mogul has made to the platform since he acquired it in October 2022.

The first six months of Twitter 2.0 – a timeline

Analysis: So, what now?

Currently, we've no clue if Yaccarino views Musk's vision of Twitter 2.0 as a boon or a burden, but as it stands one thing is for sure; she's got a lot of damage control to do if she has any hope of turning around Twitter's current reputation with both advertisers and its users.

Yaccarino has already proved a divisive choice on several many fronts. Time magazine published an insightful piece discussing the concept of the “glass cliff” – women or other minority figures being hired into senior leadership roles at a time of crisis, setting them up for failure (see: every female UK Prime Minister – not to excuse their actions). This idea becomes especially poignant when you recognize the power Musk will still have over the platform as Executive Chair and CTO, effectively retaining his ability to veto and push through changes in his own vision. 

There are, of course, loyal Musk supporters (many of whom, I expect, make up the majority of Twitter Blue subscriptions) who will unwaveringly support the move just as they do every other hair-brained scheme from the soon-to-be-ex Chief Twit.

However, there is a subsection of Musk's following that gravitated to him as a figurehead for anti-wokeness, a movement associated with the alt-right and purveyors of online anti-social behaviors including misogyny, racism, and homophobia. 

For these individuals, Yaccarino poses a threat; she’s a woman, to start with, but she’s also associated with the World Economic Forum (WEF), which is regularly targeted by conspiracy theorists. Additionally, Yaccarino has previously broadcast left-leaning rhetoric, from promoting mask-wearing and vaccination to tackling fake news.

Conversely, Twitter users have been quick to highlight her close association with former US President Donald Trump, serving a two-year term on the administration's council on Sports Fitness and Nutrition, as well as some of the more dubious accounts she's following.

See more

Of course, other users were more than ready to point out that Yaccarino also follows a number of left-wing figureheads, including AOC. 

Ultimately,It seems as though neither side is really happy about her appointment right now, but the proof will be in the pudding. For whatever remains of the Twitter we once knew and loved (or at least, tolerated), I certainly hope her slightly muddy political talking points are less newsworthy than the positive change she'll hopefully bring to the platform. 

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

Read More

Netgear router security flaws finally patched after six months
  • No Comments

Netgear has issued patches to fix security vulnerabilities in two of its routers which can be exploited by an attacker to take full control of the devices remotely.

The two devices that have received patches are the R6400v2 and R6700v3. However, 77 of Netgear's other routers reportedly still remain vulnerable to a zero-day vulnerability that was reported to the company back in January of this year.

The vulnerability, which lies in the HTTPD daemon used to manage the routers, was discovered independently by both Grimm's Adam Nichols and d4rkn3ss from Vietnam's VNPT ISC through the Zero Day Initiative (ZDI).

ZDI has released a report that includes some information about the vulnerability while Nichols has written a lengthy blog post describing it in detail, a Proof of Concept (PoC) exploit and even scripts to find vulnerable routers online.

Zero-day vulnerability

Based on the reports about the vulnerability, affected router models have an HTTPD daemon which does not adequately check the length of data supplied by a user and this allows an attacker to create a buffer overflow when data is copied to a fixed-length variable.

To exploit the flaw in Netgear's routers, an attacker would need to create a specially crafted string capable of executing commands on the device without having to authenticate first. In his blog post, Nichols explained that while stack cookies would normally be able to mitigate this vulnerability, many of Netgear's routers don't use them, saying:

“In most modern software, this vulnerability would be unexploitable. Modern software typically contains stack cookies which would prevent exploitation. However, the R7000 does not use stack cookies. In fact, of all of the Netgear products which share a common codebase, only the D8500 firmware version 1.0.3.29 and the R6300v2 firmware versions 1.0.4.12-1.0.4.20 use stack cookies. However, later versions of the D8500 and R6300v2 stopped using stack cookies, making this vulnerability once again exploitable.”

By default, the HTTPD Daemon these routers is only accessible via LAN, although router admins can enable it so it can be accessed remotely over the internet. However, attackers can still create malicious websites using JavaScript to perform DNS rebinding attacks which would allow them to execute commands remotely on routers that are not accessible over the internet.

If you have Netgear's R6400v2 or R6700v3 router you can download hot-fixes for the vulnerability now but if you have one of the 77 other affected routers, you're out of luck until the company releases patches for them.

Via BleepingComputer

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

Read More