"Windows devices that support the newest Vector Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) (VAES) instruction set might be susceptible to data damage," the company revealed today.
Devices affected by this newly acknowledged known issue use AES-XTS (AES XEX-based tweaked-codebook mode with ciphertext stealing) or AES-GCM (AES with Galois/Counter Mode) block cipher modes on new hardware.
Microsoft says the issue was addressed to prevent further data damage in preview and security releases issued on May 24 and June 14, respectively.
However, these Windows updates also come with a performance hit since AES-based operations might be two times (2x) slower after installing them on affected systems running Windows Server 2022 and Windows 11 (original release).
Scenarios impacted by the performance hit might include BitLocker, Transport Layer Security (TLS) (specifically load balancers), and disk throughput (especially for enterprise customers).
"If this affects you, we strongly urge you to install the May 24, 2022 preview release or the June 14, 2022 security release as soon as possible to prevent further damage," Microsoft added.
"Performance will be restored after you install the June 23, 2022 preview release or the July 12, 2022 security release."