Why it issues: In line with Microsoft, an encryption bug in older variations of Home windows 11 and Home windows Server 2022 might result in information corruption on techniques working Ice Lake, Tiger Lake, or Rocket Lake CPUs. The corporate mounted the issue a couple of months in the past by way of a patch that launched efficiency penalties, with the most recent updates returning encryption velocity to regular.
Microsoft has acknowledged a extreme bug in Home windows 11 and Home windows Server 2022 that leads to information injury for units outfitted with processors supporting the most recent Vector Superior Encryption Normal (VAES) instruction set.
Solely newer CPU generations help VAES directions, together with Ice Lake, Tiger Lake, Rocket Lake, and AMD’s upcoming Zen 4. It’s also possible to manually allow them on early Alder Lake processors on sure motherboards, though Intel has bodily fused off AVX-512 completely in newer CPU revisions.
Microsoft claims the issue stems from the brand new code paths added to SymCrypt (Home windows’s core cryptographic operate library) that reap the benefits of VAES directions. Particularly, the affected machines use both AES XEX-based tweaked-codebook mode with ciphertext stealing (AES-XTS) or AES with Galois/Counter Mode (GCM) (AES-GCM).
The corporate initially addressed the info corruption challenge within the Might 24 preview launch and the June 14 safety replace. Nevertheless, these patches launched an enormous efficiency penalty for AES-based operations, with some capabilities reportedly taking twice as lengthy. In Microsoft’s testing, slowdowns occurred in Bitlocker and the Transport Layer Safety (TLS) protocol, with disk throughput additionally affected, particularly for enterprise prospects.
Happily, Microsoft’s latest updates resolve these efficiency regressions. Customers can obtain the brand new patches mechanically by way of Home windows Replace or obtain them immediately from Microsoft’s Replace Catalog.
Home windows 11 used to have one other challenge that led to degraded SSD efficiency. Microsoft’s first patch solely mounted the issue for some folks, and it took a number of months for the corporate to launch an replace that restored disk efficiency to regular ranges for everybody. Some Home windows 11 PCs additionally include Virtualization-based Safety (VBS) enabled by default, which has a major efficiency impression in some situations, most notably gaming.