{"id":29865,"date":"2025-02-27T08:59:48","date_gmt":"2025-02-27T13:59:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/?p=29865"},"modified":"2025-02-27T08:59:48","modified_gmt":"2025-02-27T13:59:48","slug":"windows-11-pirates-use-copilot-to-activate-windows-optional-windows-11-update-brings-fixes-and-more-advertising-security-attacks-on-password-managers-soar-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/windows-11-pirates-use-copilot-to-activate-windows-optional-windows-11-update-brings-fixes-and-more-advertising-security-attacks-on-password-managers-soar-and-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Windows 11 Pirates Use Copilot to Activate Windows; Optional Windows 11 Update Brings Fixes and More Advertising; Security Attacks on Password Managers Soar&#8230; and more!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 24pt;\"><strong>Windows 11 Pirates Use Copilot to Activate Windows; Optional Windows 11 Update Brings Fixes and More Advertising; Security Attacks on Password Managers Soar<\/strong><\/span><strong><span style=\"font-size: 24pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">&#8230; and more!<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Every day, we scan the tech world for interesting news, sometimes from outside the tech world. Every Thursday, we feature news articles that grabbed our attention over the past week. We hope you find this week&#8217;s &#8216;Thursday Newsbytes&#8217; informative and interesting!<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.windowscentral.com\/software-apps\/windows-11\/windows-11-pirates-have-a-new-and-unlikely-ally-microsoft-copilot\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: 24pt;\"><strong>Windows 11 pirates have a new and unlikely ally \u2014 Microsoft Copilot<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Asking Copilot if there is a script to activate Windows 11 results in a how-to guide with steps to activate an unauthorized copy of the operating system.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Fledgling pirates who want to run Windows 11 without a license have a new helper, and it&#8217;s not who you would expect. Microsoft Copilot will help you activate Windows 11 without paying for a license if you use the right prompt.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Pirating Windows is not new. To be honest, it&#8217;s not especially difficult from a technical perspective. There are, of course, moral and legal questions about using unauthorized versions of the operating system, but the process of using Windows without a license is quite simple.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">That being said, Copilot has made it easier than ever to activate Windows 11, and that presents security and ethical problems.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">If you ask Copilot &#8220;is there a script to activate Windows 11,&#8221; the AI tool will share a how-to guide that includes a script you can run to activate the OS&#8230;<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.windowscentral.com\/software-apps\/windows-11\/windows-11-pirates-have-a-new-and-unlikely-ally-microsoft-copilot\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: 18pt;\">Read more at Windows Central.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcworld.com\/article\/2620608\/optional-windows-11-24h2-update-brings-fixes-and-more-advertising.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 24pt;\">Optional Windows 11 24H2 update brings fixes and more advertising<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 24pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">The optional KB5052093 update for Windows 11 24H2 is rolling out with improvements and some steps backward.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Microsoft is currently rolling out a new optional update for Windows 11 24H2. Update KB5052093 brings some new features, but also adds some self-promotion to the system with Microsoft placing a banner in the system settings to emphasize Game Pass.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Let\u2019s dive into the more notable changes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 18pt;\"><strong><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">New camera options<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">This update introduces a new camera control in Windows 11 that no longer limits a camera to being used by just one app at a time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">To test this, you can call up the \u201cAdvanced camera options\u201d in Settings &gt; Bluetooth &amp; devices &gt; Cameras. With the option \u201cAllow multiple apps to use the camera at the same time,\u201d the camera control can be customized so that it\u2019s available to all apps simultaneously.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Another new feature helps resolve camera problems. In the settings, you can now activate \u201cbasic camera\u201d mode, which can make it easier to troubleshoot issues when your camera isn\u2019t functioning properly.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-size: 18pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Taskbar and File Explorer improvements<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">The Windows taskbar can now share files directly from a drop-down menu (also called a jump list) when you right-click on an app. Of course, this only works if the app in question supports jump lists.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">As for File Explorer, you can now snooze or disable the \u201cStart backup\u201d reminders in the address bar. You\u2019ll also notice performance improvements with folders that have lots of media files, more consistent thumbnails for cloud files in search results, and a fix for the bug where entering a URL might not go to the right location&#8230;<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcworld.com\/article\/2620608\/optional-windows-11-24h2-update-brings-fixes-and-more-advertising.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><span style=\"font-size: 18pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: 18pt;\">Read More at PC World.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/pro\/security\/security-attacks-on-password-managers-have-soared\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 24pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Security attacks on password managers have soared<\/span><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 24pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Number of attacks increases three times in just a year<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Cybercriminals are increasingly targeting password managers in an attempt to break into various important digital accounts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Picus Security detailed its findings in the newly-released Red Report 2025, based on an in-depth analysis of more than a million malware variants collected last year, finding a quarter of all malware (25%) targeted credentials in password stores. This, the researchers claim, represents a three-fold increase compared to the year before.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">\u201cFor the first time ever, stealing credentials from password stores is in the top 10 techniques listed in the MITRE ATT&amp;CK Framework,\u201d they said. \u201cThe report reveals that these top 10 techniques accounted for 93% of all malicious actions in 2024.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-size: 18pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Multi-factor authentication<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">The attackers are using all sorts of sophisticated extraction methods in their attacks, Picus Security co-founder and VP of Picus Labs, Dr. Suleyman Ozarslan said, including memory scraping, registry harvesting, and compromising local and cloud-based password stores&#8230;<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/pro\/security\/security-attacks-on-password-managers-have-soared\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 18pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Read more at TechRadar Pro.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/daveywinder\/2025\/02\/24\/hackers-share-39-billion-stolen-passwords-what-you-need-to-know\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 24pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">3.9 Billion Passwords Stolen\u2014Infostealer Malware Blamed<\/span><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">his story, originally published Feb. 22, has been updated with a stark example of a real-world infostealer malware attack campaign targeting the U.S. military, as well as a new warning from the head of engineering at NordPass about how AI is coming for your passwords next and how to protect against the threat.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Considering just how many infostealer malware warnings have been issued recently, from macOS-specific threats, to those targeting a broad sweep of Gmail and Outlook email users, there can be little doubting that cybercrime actors are coming for your passwords. Now the true reach of the infostealer malware threat has been laid bare by a threat intelligence agency which specializes in leveraging dark web data, and the picture it paints is a scary one. Here\u2019s what you need to know&#8230;<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/daveywinder\/2025\/02\/24\/hackers-share-39-billion-stolen-passwords-what-you-need-to-know\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 18pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Read more at Forbes<\/span><\/strong><span style=\"font-size: 18pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\"><strong>.<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/pro\/in-the-age-of-ai-everybody-could-lose-the-right-to-anonymity\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 24pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">In the age of AI, everybody could lose the right to anonymity<\/span><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Generative AI is reshaping industries and redefining how we harness technology, unlocking new opportunities at a scale never seen before.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">However, this transformation comes with a list of challenges. Chief among them is the erosion of data privacy. Traditional methods of anonymizing data, once considered effective in unlocking valuable insights while preserving privacy, have quickly become vulnerable against AI\u2019s growing capabilities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">As AI lowers the barriers to identifying individuals from supposedly anonymous datasets, organizations must adopt a paradigm shift toward encryption-based methods. Solutions like confidential computing offer a clear path forward, ensuring that data remains protected even as AI\u2019s capabilities grow.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Without these advances, the promise of privacy in the digital age could become a thing of the past&#8230;<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/pro\/in-the-age-of-ai-everybody-could-lose-the-right-to-anonymity\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-size: 18pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Read more at TechRadar Pro.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18pt; color: #ff0000;\"><strong><em>Thanks for reading this week&#8217;s Thursday Newbytes. We hope these articles were informative, interesting, fun, and helpful. <\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thundercloud.net\/donation.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/images\/2017\/goodfight2017.png\" alt=\"Help us help you!\" width=\"573\" height=\"136\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Windows 11 Pirates Use Copilot to Activate Windows; Optional Windows 11 Update Brings Fixes and More Advertising; Security Attacks on Password Managers Soar&#8230; and more! Every day, we scan the tech world for interesting news, sometimes from outside the tech world. Every Thursday, we feature news articles that grabbed our attention over the past week. We hope\u2026 <span class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/windows-11-pirates-use-copilot-to-activate-windows-optional-windows-11-update-brings-fixes-and-more-advertising-security-attacks-on-password-managers-soar-and-more\/\">Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29224,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4421,1678,4485,2942,1674,4523,4221],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29865"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29865"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29867,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29865\/revisions\/29867"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}