Microsoft has announced a three-phase approach to phase out New Technology LAN Manager (NTLM) as part of its efforts to shift Windows environments toward stronger, Kerberos-based options. The development comes more than two years after the tech giant revealed its plans to deprecate the legacy technology, citing its susceptibility to weaknesses that could facilitate relay attacks and allow bad actors to gain unauthorized access to network resources.
Microsoft Defender is the built-in anti-malware package that's included with modern Windows operating systems. It's alternatively known as Windows Security (it shows up under Settings > Privacy & security as Windows Security), Windows Defender, or Microsoft Defender Antivirus, as on this Microsoft Learn page. But whatever you want to call it, for many Windows users, this tool is the go-to default for handling security on their PCs.
