Microsoft was one of the few companies that continued to support 1024-bit TLS (Transport Layer Security) encryption, a solution that had long been deprecated, but was maintained just for the sake of simplicity. support for legacy web applications which were still present on pages of some importance.

Everything has an end and this is no exception. Microsoft confirmed end of support for TLS encryption keys smaller than 2048 bits on Windows, which means that all websites and applications that use outdated encryption will be blocked directly and without exception. This means, as I mentioned in the previous paragraph, the end of a large number of applications and websites whose security was outdated.

Today, the recommended security level is encryption keys. 2048 bits RSA, short for “Rivest–Shamir–Adleman” or codes 256 bits ECDSA, short for “Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm.” If we do a quick comparison, 1024-bit RSA encryption keys have security strength 80 bits, while those with 2048 bits go up 112 bits.

From now on, all RSA certificates used when authenticating with TLS keys They must be 2048 bits long for Windows to consider them valid. If not, they will be rejected outright. This will help greatly improve security and block many potentially dangerous older sites and apps.

It’s a major change to Windows, but it’s not the only one Microsoft is planning. The Redmond giant also recently announced that it does updating your secure boot keys that date back to the Windows 8 era. In the future, there are rumors about the possibility that Microsoft will introduce a security solution at the hardware level, which could further strengthen the protection at the level of the operating system. Windows 12 could be the first operating system to incorporate these advancements.

As a Windows user for many, many years, I have to admit this Microsoft has made important security improvementsand that these improvements became especially tangible with the advent of Windows. The last security issue I had due to a malware infection was with Windows 7, as I had no such issue with Windows 10 or Windows 11.

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