If you are planning to install or re-install Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365 this month in your own (or your customer's) environment, be sure to download the new installation package from our web site. The reason is a weird bug that makes all installations deployed in December not to "see" restore points it creates, despite the data is properly stored on the backup server. The new installation package includes a fix for this bug. Based on our testing, backup servers installed before December are not affected – so you don't need to update to the new build. Funny bug indeed, don't ask how something like this is even possible to code! Because there's a logical explanation and it spoils all the fun.
Another critical vulnerability for me to highlight this week – and while not as silly as last week's MacOS one, but it is equally spectacular. Essentially, there's the vulnerability in – wait for it – Windows Defender itself that allows the attacker to take full control of a victim's PC. Meaning, all it takes is delivering the specially crafted file to the PC (for example, via email or website) – and as soon as the Malware Protection Engine performs its scan, you are hacked. How freaking cool is that – whoever came up with this really thinks outside the box. Considering that Windows Defender is enabled by default, this makes it a truly epic issue for anyone who did not install the emergency update. Funny coincidence, but just a couple of weeks ago I installed a 3rd party antivirus, and noticed that it automatically disabled Windows Defender. How timely!
I had a great call with the ReFS team at MIcrosoft last week, and finally there is some good news to share on the infamous ReFS issue. Apparently, the reason it took so long to fix is that there are multiple separate issues! For about 20 min, I just listened to the lead developer going through all of them, and their findings made perfect sense. I can see now how hard it was to identify and separate all these individual issues, when some were outside of ReFS even – for example, caused by NTFS-specific optimization in the OS memory management. And it also makes perfect sense now why only some of our customers were affected – for example, small ReFS volumes should be much less impacted by these bugs. Anyway, long story short – all known issues seem to be fully fixed in RS4 (as validated by multiple impacted customers who Microsoft worked with directly), and they are now waiting for approval to include the backport into RS1 – so if all is well, the fixes should arrive in one of the next cumulative updates. Meanwhile, I suppose it would be a good idea for everyone affected to get the private fix from Microsoft Support – we're getting one for our labs too.
And to finish off the Microsoft topic – I was really contemplating upgrading my Windows 10 systems to the Fall Creators Update (aka RS3) to get a few cool features I need, without waiting the usual 6 months as I always do, but luckily other things kept me busy... and now I am happy I did not, because I'm seeing complaints from some colleagues who did upgrade regarding computer performance vastly reducing after some time – and Google says the issue is quite wide spread. So, I am back to Plan A.
Remember that article on AlphaGo Zero from a few weeks ago? Well, of course the DeepMind team did not stop at the not-so-popular Go, and switched to the most popular game of all time – chess! The fact that Alpha Zero "taught itself" to play chess better than the best existing chess programs in just 24 hours should not really surprise us already. The cool part is HOW Alpha Zero plays chess: it does this like nothing else in this world, exhibiting completely "alien" behavior of a player from another dimension. Simply fascinating! |
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