Why it issues: According to Microsoft, an encryption bug in older variations of Windows 11 and Windows Server 2022 might result in information corruption on methods operating Ice Lake, Tiger Lake, or Rocket Lake CPUs. The firm 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 pace to regular.
Microsoft has acknowledged a extreme bug in Windows 11 and Windows Server 2022 that leads to information harm for gadgets geared up with processors supporting the most recent Vector Advanced Encryption Standard (VAES) instruction set.
Only newer CPU generations assist VAES directions, together with Ice Lake, Tiger Lake, Rocket Lake, and AMD’s upcoming Zen 4. You may also manually allow them on early Alder Lake processors on sure motherboards, though Intel has bodily fused off AVX-512 fully in newer CPU revisions.
Microsoft claims the issue stems from the brand new code paths added to SymCrypt (Windows’s core cryptographic perform library) that reap the benefits of VAES directions. Specifically, 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 firm initially addressed the information corruption subject within the May 24 preview launch and the June 14 safety replace. However, 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 Security (TLS) protocol, with disk throughput additionally affected, particularly for enterprise clients.
Fortunately, Microsoft’s latest updates resolve these efficiency regressions. Users can obtain the brand new patches robotically through Windows Update or obtain them instantly from Microsoft’s Update Catalog.
Windows 11 used to have one other subject that led to degraded SSD efficiency. Microsoft’s first patch solely mounted the issue for some individuals, and it took a number of months for the corporate to launch an replace that restored disk efficiency to regular ranges for everybody. Some Windows 11 PCs additionally include Virtualization-based Security (VBS) enabled by default, which has a major efficiency influence in some situations, most notably gaming.