Microsoft will disable NTLM as standard in Windows

Microsoft recently announced its plans to disable the legacy New Technology LAN Manager (NTLM) protocol by default in upcoming Windows releases. The software giant disclosed that the move is designed to address critical security vulnerabilities that would expose organizations to malicious attacks by bad actors, including “replay and man-in-the-middle attacks, due to its use of weak cryptography”.

For context, the tech giant first introduced the protocol in 1993 with Windows NT 3.1 as the LAN Manager (LM) protocol’s successor (via BleepingComputer). The protocol is designed to help authenticate a user’s identity while simultaneously protecting the integrity and confidentiality of their activity.