Microsoft

A serious flaw in Microsoft's recent Windows 11 updates is reportedly causing solid-state drives and hard disk drives to fail completely, prompting the tech giant to work urgently with hardware partners on a solution.

Microsoft is currently grappling with a significant service disruption that has left thousands of users unable to access key productivity platforms, including Office.com and the company's AI-powered Copilot assistant. The outage, which began in the early morning hours of August 20, 2025, has primarily impacted customers across North America, though the full scope of the incident remains under investigation.

Microsoft's August 2025 Patch Tuesday release represents one of the most comprehensive security updates of the year, addressing 111 security vulnerabilities across the company's software portfolio. This substantial update includes fixes for 107 vulnerabilities in core Windows and Microsoft software products, with an additional 16 vulnerabilities addressed in Microsoft's Chromium-based Edge browser.

Microsoft has raised the stakes for its flagship security competition, announcing that the prize pool for the 2025 Zero Day Quest hacking contest will be increased to $5 million. This represents the largest reward the company has ever offered for a public security research event, surpassing last year’s total by $1 million. The move underscores Microsoft’s commitment to attracting top security talent and driving innovation in vulnerability research.

Microsoft’s DragonV2.1Neural represents a significant leap forward in zero-shot text-to-speech (TTS) technology, now powering the Azure AI Speech Service. By combining scalability, expressiveness, and multilingual proficiency, DragonV2.1Neural is redefining the standards in AI-driven speech synthesis—while also raising urgent ethical and security considerations.

Microsoft has significantly increased its bug bounty rewards for researchers who discover and responsibly disclose high-impact security vulnerabilities within the .NET and ASP.NET Core platforms. Under the latest update to its bug bounty program, the tech giant now offers rewards of up to $40,000 for the most severe vulnerabilities, such as those enabling remote code execution and privilege escalation.